Matthew Henry (1662 - 1714) has produced without question the finest comprehensive commentary on the Bible ever penned. Raised by godly, pious parents, Matthew was already reading the Bible by the age of three, and it is recorded that by the age of nine he was already competent in Latin and Greek. Matthew Henry is one of those rare men who became a greater minister than the mighty preacher of his father who reared him. Matthew Henry was thoroughly Puritan and Nonconformist in doctrine, and his carriage was equal to his profession. While his Commentary is available in almost every electronic format known to man, as well as through various print publications, one wonders how much it is actually consulted today. Nevertheless, it is a goldmine, and he who does not read and study Matthew Henry's Commentary On The Whole Bible deprives himself of some of the Christian's greatest treasures. Matthew Henry also wrote a little book entitled, Experiencing God's Presence, in which you will find astounding insight into God's secret ways. Spurgeon recommended that every Christian read Henry's Commentary straight through at least once, and this was also the Commentary that George Whitefield carried with him throughout his travels.

 "Though we cannot by our prayers give God any information, we must by our prayers give Him honour." Experiencing God's Presence, p 22

"God's Word must be the guide of your desires and the ground of your expectations in prayer." Experiencing God's Presence, p 24

"The Bible is a letter God has sent to us; prayer is a letter we send to Him... Give Him His titles as you do when you direct a letter to a person of honour." Experiencing God's Presence, p 30

"Direct your prayer to Him in heaven... We must view Him as God in heaven, as opposed to the gods of the heathen, which dwelt in temples made with hands." Experiencing God's Presence, p 32

"Those, and those only, can expect to be taught by God, who are ready and willing to do as they are taught... Those who go up to the house of the Lord with an expectation that He will teach them His ways, must go with a humble resolution that they will walk in His paths." Experiencing God's Presence, p 73-74

"It is not enough to bear the cross, but we must take it up -- we must accommodate ourselves to it and acquiesce to the will of God in it."  Experiencing God's Presence, p 92

"What God has promised us, we may with assurance promise ourselves, and no more... Hope for the best, and get ready for the worst, and then take what God sends." Experiencing God's Presence, p 94

"In the midst of the church's greatest discouragements, when its affairs are reduced to the last extremity, we must not think it fruitless to wait on God. His created beings cannot help without Him, but He can help without them." Experiencing God's Presence, p 105

"We are never less alone than when we are alone with God." Experiencing God's Presence, p 107

"We cannot with any confidence wait on God, except in and through a Mediator, for it is by His Son that God speaks to us and hears from us. All that passes between a just God and poor sinners must pass through the hand of that blessed Man, who has laid His hand upon them both. Every prayer passes from us to God, and every mercy from God to us, by that hand." Experiencing God's Presence, p 112

"Though we cannot say that this day will be our last, we ought to live as if we were sure it would be." Experiencing God's Presence, p 113

"Though the gracious soul still desires more of God, it never desires more than God." Experiencing God's Presence, p 118

"What will break a worldly man's heart will not break a godly man's sleep." Experiencing God's Presence, p 123

"We will find it much easier in itself, and much more pleasant in looking back, to forgive twenty injuries, than to avenge one." Experiencing God's Presence, p 152

"See what a hidden life the life of a good Christian is, and how much it is concealed from the eye and observation of the world. The most important part of the business lies between God and our own souls, in the frame of our spirits and the working of our hearts, in our actions that no eye sees except the all-seeing God. Justly are the saints called God's hidden ones, and His secret is said to be with them. They have meat to eat and work to do that the world does not know of, as well as joys, griefs, and cares that a stranger does not share." Experiencing God's Presence, p 169

"It is certain that all who will go to heaven hereafter begin their heaven now, and have their hearts there." Experiencing God's Presence, p 174

"Good stewardship is good theology. It is not only necessary to spend part of our time in actual preparation for another world, but all our time must be spent with a habitual regard to it." Experiencing God's Presence, p 176

"They that fear the Lord speak good words often to one another, and the Lord pays attention and hears and writes them in a book of remembrance... [but]... when the sincere, sacred words of 'God be with you' and 'God bless you' are used carelessly and lightly, they degenerate and turn into the sin of taking the name of the Lord in vain." Experiencing God's Presence, p 185-186

"Wherever Jesus was, He was about His Father's business. Let us, though unworthy of such an honour, still endeavor to be likewise employed." Experiencing God's Presence, p 203

"A child of God startles at the very thought of despairing of help in God; you cannot vex him with anything so much as if you offer to persuade him There is no help in God." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm III

"Let duty be carefully done, and sin carefully avoided, considering that he who sees all now, will tell all shortly before angels and men, in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest." The Life Of The Reverend Matthew Henry, Chapter III

"Those are best friends that are friends to our souls, and those are our worst enemies that are enemies to our souls; for the soul is the man, and if the soul be lost, all is lost." The Life Of The Reverend Matthew Henry, Chapter III

"We should labour to see reality and weight in invisible things, and live as those that must be somewhere for ever." The Life Of The Reverend Matthew Henry, Chapter III

"Christians who owe their all to Christ, should be often talking of him." The Life Of The Reverend Matthew Henry, Chapter III

"The scripture proves its divine authority and original both to the wise and to the unwise... If we look carefully, we shall soon be aware of God's image and superscription upon it. A mind rightly disposed by a humble, sincere subjection to its Maker, will easily discover the image of God's wisdom in the awful depth of its mysteries; the image of his sovereignty in the commanding majesty of its style; the image of his unity in the wonderful harmony and symmetry of all its parts; the image of his holiness in the unspotted purity of its precepts; and the image of his goodness in the manifest tendency of the whole to the welfare and happiness of mankind in both worlds; in short, it is a work that fathers itself." Commentary, Preface To Volume I

"Nothing is more injurious to the honour of the Eternal Mind than the supposition of eternal matter." Commentary, Genesis 1:1-2

"What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise." Commentary, Genesis 1:6-8

"The scriptures were written, not to gratify our curiosity and make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints." Commentary, Genesis 1:14-19

"When our Lord Jesus anointed the blind man's eyes with clay perhaps he intimated that it was he who at first formed man out of the clay; and when he breathed on his disciples, saying, Receive you the Holy Ghost, he intimated that it was he who at first breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. He that made the soul is alone able to new-make it." Commentary, Genesis 2:4-7

"That which God plants he will take care to keep watered." Commentary, Genesis 2:8-15

"God creates a new thing to be a help-meet for man -- not so much the woman as the seed of the woman." Commentary, Genesis 2:18-20

"If Adam had not sinned, he had not sweated." Commentary, Genesis 3:17-19

"That which is to be aimed at in all acts of religion is God's acceptance: we speed well if we attain this, but in vain do we worship if we miss of it." Commentary, Genesis 4:3-5

"Abel's blood cried for vengeance; Christ's blood cries for pardon." Commentary, Genesis 4:9-12

"We cannot think too ill of sin, provided we do not think it unpardonable." Commentary, Genesis 4:13-15

"Man is not his own maker, therefore he must not be his own master; but the Author of his being must be the director of his motions and the centre of them." Commentary, Genesis 5:1-5

"Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint." Commentary, Genesis 5:1-5

"Those whose conversation in the world is truly holy shall find their removal out of it truly happy." Commentary, Genesis 5:21-24

"We do but mock God in saying that we are sorry for our sin, and that it grieves us to the heart, if we continue to indulge it." Commentary, Genesis 6:6-7

"He that is our Creator, if he be not our ruler, will be our destroyer." Commentary, Genesis 6:6-7

"None are ruined by the justice of God but those that hate to be reformed by the grace of God." Commentary, Genesis 6:6-7

"None but a downright honest man can find favour with God... God has sometimes chosen the foolish things of the world, but he never chose the knavish things of it." Commentary, Genesis 6:8-10

"God looks down upon those with an eye of favour who sincerely look up to him with an eye of faith." Commentary, Genesis 6:8-10

"That cannot but be done effectually which God himself undertakes the doing of." Commentary, Genesis 6:13-21

"Every blow of his [Noah's] axes and hammers was a call to repentance, a call to them to prepare arks too. But, since by it he could not convince the world, by it he condemned the world." Commentary, Genesis 6:22

"Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions; and as troubles abound consolations much more abound." Commentary, Genesis 7:17-20

"Punishments are chiefly reserved for the future state. God's judgments on sinners in this life, compared with those which are reserved, are little more than restraints." Commentary, Genesis 11:5-9

"Many reach to Charran, and yet fall short of Canaan; they are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet never come thither." Commentary, Genesis 11:27-32

"If God loves us, and has mercy in store for us, he will not suffer us to take up our rest any where short of Canaan, but will graciously repeat his calls, till the good work begun be performed, and our souls repose in God only... The world, and all our enjoyments in it, must be looked upon with a holy indifference and contempt; we must no longer look upon it as our country, or home, but as our inn, and must accordingly sit loose to it and live above it, get out of it in affection." Commentary, Genesis 12:1-3

"If God did not deliver us, many a time, by prerogative, out of those straits and distresses which we bring ourselves into by our own sin and folly, and which therefore we could not expect any deliverance from by promise, we should soon be ruined, nay, we should have been ruined long before this. He deals not with us according to our deserts." Commentary, Genesis 12:14-20

"In all our choices this principle should overrule us -- that that is best for us which is best for our souls." Commentary, Genesis 13:10-13

"Abounding sins are sure presages of approaching judgments." Commentary, Genesis 13:10-13

"The same God that provides the inheritance provides the heirs. He that has prepared the holy land prepares the holy seed; he that gives glory gives grace to make meet for glory." Commentary, Genesis 13:14-18

"Either an estate without an heir, or an heir without an estate, would have been but a half comfort to Abram. But God ensures both to him; and that which made these two, the promised seed and the promised land, comforts indeed to this great believer was that they were both typical of those two invaluable blessings, Christ and heaven; and so, we have reason to think, Abram eyed them." Commentary, Genesis 15, Preface

"God's good word does us good when it is spoken by his Spirit to us in particular, and brought to our hearts." Commentary, Genesis 15:1

"God often withholds those temporal comforts from his own children which he gives plentifully to others that are strangers to him." Commentary, Genesis 15:2-6

"God's promises are God's gifts, and are so to be accounted." Commentary, Genesis 15:17-21

"Those that are graciously admitted into communion with God, and receive seasonable comforts from him, should tell others what he has done for their souls, that they also may be encouraged to seek him and trust in him." Commentary, Genesis 16:10-14

"Those who obey divine precepts shall have the comfort of divine promises." Commentary, Genesis 16:15-16

"To be religious is to walk before God in our integrity; it is to set God always before us, and to think, and speak, and act, in every thing, as those that are always under his eye. It is to have a constant regard to his word as our rule and to his glory as our end in all our actions, and to be continually in his fear. It is to be inward with him, in all the duties of religious worship, for in them particularly we walk before God, and to be entire for him, in all holy conversation. I know no religion but sincerity." Commentary, Genesis 17:1-3

"What God is himself, that he will be to his people: his wisdom theirs, to guide and counsel them; his power theirs, to protect and support them; his goodness theirs, to supply and comfort them. What faithful worshippers can expect from the God they serve believers shall find in God as theirs." Commentary, Genesis 17:7-14

"God takes whom he pleases into covenant with himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." Commentary, Genesis 17:15-22

"We cannot expect too little from man nor too much from God." Commentary, Genesis 18:23-33

"He that is the Saviour will be the destroyer of those that reject the salvation." Commentary, Genesis 19:24-25

"As by the example of Sodom the wicked are warned to turn from their wickedness, so by the example of Lot's wife the righteous are warned not to turn from their righteousness." Commentary, Genesis 19:26

"The work of life must be done before we die, for it cannot be done afterwards; and it is very desirable, when we come to die, to have nothing else to do but to die." Commentary, Genesis 27:1-5

"If we would obtain a blessing from our heavenly Father, we must come for it in the garments of our elder brother, clothed with his righteousness, who is the first-born among many brethren." Commentary, Genesis 27:6-17

"Prayer may preach; and praise may do so too." Commentary, Ephesians 1:1-2

"Election, or choice, respects that lump or mass of mankind out of which some are chosen, from which they are separated and distinguished. Predestination has respect to the blessings they are designed for; particularly the adoption of children, it being the purpose of God that in due time we should become his adopted children, and so have a right to all the privileges and to the inheritance of children. We have here the date of this act of love: it was before the foundation of the world; not only before God's people had a being, but before the world had a beginning; for they were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. It magnifies these blessings to a high degree that they are the products of eternal counsel." Commentary, Ephesians 1:3-14

"God was satisfied by Christ as our substitute and surety; but it was rich grace that would accept of a surety, when he might have executed the severity of the law upon the transgressor, and it was rich grace to provide such a surety as his own Son, and freely to deliver him up, when nothing of that nature could have entered into our thoughts, nor have been any otherwise found out for us. In this instance he has not only manifested riches of grace, but has abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence (Eph 1:8), wisdom in contriving the dispensation, and prudence in executing the counsel of his will, as he has done. How illustrious have the divine wisdom and prudence rendered themselves, in so happily adjusting the matter between justice and mercy in this grand affair, in securing the honour of God and his law, at the same time that the recovery of sinners and their salvation are ascertained and made sure!" Commentary, Ephesians 1:3-14

"All the lines of divine revelation meet in Christ; all religion centres in him." Commentary, Ephesians 1:3-14

"The Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, Eph 1:14. The earnest is part of payment, and it secures the full sum: so is the gift of the Holy Ghost; all his influences and operations, both as a sanctifier and a comforter, are heaven begun, glory in the seed and bud. The Spirit's illumination is an earnest of everlasting light; sanctification is an earnest of perfect holiness; and his comforts are earnests of everlasting joys. He is said to be the earnest, until the redemption of the purchased possession. It may be called here the possession, because this earnest makes it as sure to the heirs as though they were already possessed of it; and it is purchased for them by the blood of Christ. The redemption of it is mentioned because it was mortgaged and forfeited by sin; and Christ restores it to us, and so is said to redeem it, in allusion to the law of redemption. Observe, from all this, what a gracious promise that is which secures the gift of the Holy Ghost to those who ask him." Commentary, Ephesians 1:3-14

"Let us endeavour then, by reading, contemplation, and prayer, to know as much of heaven as we can, that we may be desiring and longing to be there." Commentary, Ephesians 1:15-23

"The practical belief of the all-sufficiency of God, and of the omnipotence of divine grace, is absolutely necessary to a close and steady walking with him. It is a desirable thing to know experimentally the mighty power of that grace beginning and carrying on the work of faith in our souls. It is a difficult thing to bring a soul to believe in Christ, and to venture its all upon his righteousness, and upon the hope of eternal life. It is nothing less than an almighty power that will work this in us." Commentary, Ephesians 1:15-23

"The mediation of Christ. He is this ladder, the foot on earth in his human nature, the top in heaven in his divine nature: or the former in his humiliation, the latter in his exaltation. All the intercourse between heaven and earth, since the fall, is by this ladder. Christ is the way; all God's favours come to us, and all our services go to him, by Christ. If God dwell with us, and we with him, it is by Christ. We have no way of getting to heaven, but by this ladder; if we climb up any other way we are thieves and robbers. To this vision our Saviour alludes when he speaks of the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man (John i. 51); for the kind offices the angels do us, and the benefits we receive by their ministration, are all owing to Christ, who has reconciled things on earth and things in heaven (Col. i. 20), and made them all meet in himself, Eph. i. 10." Commentary, Genesis 28:10-15

"Christ is the great blessing of the world. All that are blessed, whatever family they are of, are blessed in him, and none of any family are excluded from blessedness in him, but those that exclude themselves." Commentary, Genesis 28:10-15

"God's promises are to be the guide and measure of our desires and expectations." Commentary, Genesis 28:10-15

"Days of trouble must be days of prayer, days of inward trouble especially, when God seems to have withdrawn from us; we must seek him and seek till we find him. In the day of his trouble he did not seek for the diversion of business or recreation, to shake off his trouble that way, but he sought God, and his favour and grace. Those that are under trouble of mind must not think to drink it away, or laugh it away, but must pray it away." Psalm 77:2

"Many a man has the witness of his own spirit to the goodness of his state who has not the concurring testimony of the Spirit. Many speak peace to themselves to whom the God of heaven does not speak peace. But those that are sanctified have God's Spirit witnessing with their spirits, which is to be understood not of any immediate extraordinary revelation, but an ordinary work of the Spirit, in and by the means of comfort, speaking peace to the soul. This testimony is always agreeable to the written word, and is therefore always grounded upon sanctification; for the Spirit in the heart cannot contradict the Spirit in the word. The Spirit witnesses to none the privileges of children who have not the nature and disposition of children." Commentary, Romans 8:16

"They that tremble at the convictions of the Word may triumph in the consolations of it." Commentary, Psalm 119:161

"All that deal with God must deal upon trust, and he will give comfort to those only that give credit to him, and make it appear they do so by quitting other confidences, and venturing to the utmost for God. The closer our expectations are confined to God, the higher our expectations may be raised." Psalm CXXV

"Envy is grieving at the good of another, than which no sin is more offensive to God, nor more injurious to our neighbour and ourselves." Commentary, Genesis 30:1