"Give someone an electric shock and I warrant you he will know it, but if he has the Holy Ghost, he will know it much more." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"Do you see a connection between your believing and the Holy Ghost? Did you receive Him when you believed?... Life does not lie latent in natural men for themselves to stir it up, but until the Holy Ghost visits them, they are dead in trespasses and sins. If, when you believed, you had not a life imparted by the Holy Spirit, your believing was a dead believing, the mere counterfeit of living faith, and not the faith of God's elect... There must, then, be a work from heaven, a work of the Holy Ghost upon the heart, or else you have not believed unto life, and you still abide in death." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"To be taught of the minister is nothing, but to be taught of the Lord is everything. It is only the Spirit of God who can engrave the truth upon the fleshy tablets of the heart... He that professes to be a believer, while he has never received the truth in the power of it, as sent home by the Spirit of light and fire, has need to begin again, and learn the first rudiments of the faith. He has learned nothing aright who has not been under the direct tuition of the Holy Ghost." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"The power to grasp Christ does not lie in our nature in its own strength or goodness. Our state is that of death, and death cannot grasp life. God the Holy Spirit must breathe life into us before we can rise from the grave of our natural depravity, and lay hold upon Christ... The power to lay hold on Christ is a spiritual power, which must be given from above... He must be born again from above, and his heart must be opened to receive the grace of God... God gives not only the blessing to the heart, but the heart to receive the blessing." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Grace For Grace |
"The religious world is more dangerous by far than the sensual world; it wears the sheepskin, but it has all the fierceness of the wolf." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Grace For Grace |
"It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavoured with the words of the Lord. I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. He had studied our Authorized Version, which will never be bettered, as I judge, till Christ shall come; he had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim's Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, 'Why, this man is a living Bible!' Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved, and, still more, the example of our Lord Jesus. If the Spirit of God be in you, he will make you love the Word of God; and if any of you imagine that the Spirit of God will lead you to dispense with the Bible, you are under the influence of another spirit which is not the Spirit of God at all. I trust that the Holy Spirit will endear to you every page of this Divine Record, so that you will feed upon it yourselves, and afterwards speak it out to others. I think it is well worthy of your constant remembrance that, even in death, our blessed Master showed the ruling passion of his spirit, so that his last words were a quotation from Scripture — 'It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'" The Last Words of Christ on the Cross |
"We should greatly grieve the Holy Spirit if we supposed that his might was less to-day than in the beginning... The Holy Ghost is here, and we ought to expect his divine working among us: and if he does not so work we should search ourselves to see what it is that hindereth, and whether there may not be somewhat in ourselves which vexes him, so that he restrains his sacred energy, and doth not work among us as he did aforetime." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"When the devil inspires the church we have modern theology; but when the Spirit of God is among us that rubbish is shot out with loathing." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"When the Spirit of God operates powerfully there is little need to issue telling appeals for widows and orphans, or to go down on your knees and plead for missionary fields which cannot be occupied for want of money." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"When a flake of fire falls into a man's bosom he knows it, and when the word of God comes home to a man's soul he knows it too." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"It is one of the peculiar offices of the Holy Spirit to ENLIGHTEN his people. He has done so by giving us his Word, which he has inspired; but the Book, inspired though it be, is never spiritually understood by any man apart from the personal teaching of its great Author." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, Our Urgent Need Of The Holy Spirit |
"Nothing do we really know unless it be burnt into our souls as with a hot iron by an experience which only the Spirit of God can give." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, Our Urgent Need Of The Holy Spirit |
"Holiness is not mere morality... Holiness is the entirety of our manhood fully consecrated to the Lord and moulded to his will. This is the thing which the church of God must have, but it can never have it apart from the Sanctifier, for there is not a grain of holiness beneath the sky but what is of the operation of the Holy Ghost." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, Our Urgent Need Of The Holy Spirit |
"You may enlist all your bishops and doctors of divinity and professors of apologetics, and they may write rolls of evidence long enough to girdle the globe, but the only person who can savingly convince the world is the Advocate whom the Father has sent in the name of Jesus. When he reveals a man's sin, and the sure result of it, the unbeliever takes to his knees. When he takes away the scales and sets forth the crucified Redeemer, and the merit of the precious blood, all carnal reasonings are nailed to the cross. One blow of real conviction of sin will stagger the most obstinate unbeliever, and afterwards, if his unbelief return, the Holy Ghost’s consolations will soon comfort it out of him. Therefore, as at the first so say I at the last. All this dependeth upon the Holy Ghost, and upon him let us wait in the name of Jesus, beseeching him to manifest his power among us." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, Our Urgent Need Of The Holy Spirit |
"We can, so far as the letter goes, learn from the Scriptures the words of Jesus for ourselves; but to understand these teachings is the gift of the Spirit of God, and of none else." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVIII, The Paraclete |
"Now the Spirit of God, if we would but trust him and give up all this idolatry of human learning, cleverness, genius, eloquence, and rhetoric, and I know not what beside, would soon answer our adversaries... If there be not a miraculous spiritual power in the church of God at this day, she is an impostor." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVIII, The Paraclete |
"John Bunyan used to say he never knew a truth until it was burned into him as with a hot iron. I sympathize in that expression." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVIII, The Paraclete |
"Brethren, among lively saints, in the use of the means of grace, in private prayer, in communion with the Lord, you will find the wind that bloweth where it listeth always in motion." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, The Heavenly Wind |
"There is a secret place of the Most High, and they shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty who have once learned to enter there, but carnal men come not into this secret chamber." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, The Heavenly Wind |
"There is no salvation apart from the Trinity. It must be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost... Do keep the existence of the Trinity prominent in your ministry. Remember, you cannot pray without the Trinity... You cannot draw near to the Father except through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXVII, Honey In The Mouth |
"Did the Holy Ghost ever show to you these thing of Christ, namely, his covenant engagements? When he struck hands with the Father, it was that he would bring many sons unto glory; that of those whom the Father gave him he would lose none, but that they should be saved; for he is under bonds to his Father to bring his elect home. When the sheep have to pass again under the hand of him that telleth them, they will go under the rod one by one, each one having the blood-mark; and he will never rest till the number in the heavenly fold shall tally with the number in the book." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXVII, Honey In The Mouth |
"Now, wherever you go, throughout the whole of Scripture, if you can find a place where you can lie down, that is yours. If you can sleep on a promise, that promise is yours." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXVII, Honey In The Mouth |
"Christ crucified is of no practical value to us without the work of the Holy Spirit; and the atonement which Jesus wrought can never save a single soul unless the blessed Spirit of God shall apply it to the heart and conscience. Jesus is never seen until the Holy Spirit opens the eye: the water from the well of life is never received until the Holy Spirit has drawn it from the depths." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol X, The Superlative Excellency Of The Holy Spirit |
"Unless our faith makes us pine after holiness and pant after conformity to God, it is no better than the faith of devils, and perhaps it is not even so good as that." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"If all your prayers have risen from no greater depth than your own heart, and if they are the fruit of no better spirit than your own, they will never reach to the ear of God, nor bring you blessings from the throne. If there is not something supernatural about your religion, it will be a millstone about your neck to sink you into hell." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"If it were possible, false teachers would deceive even the elect; but where the Spirit of God dwells, he detects for us the false from the true, and he gives us the spirit of a sound mind, by which we reject that which is false, and cleave only to that which is revealed of God." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"Farewell to the witness of the Spirit in the hearts of men when men are taught the inventions of men in the place of the revelation of God." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"All those who are true disciples of Christ have felt a divinely supernatural power working upon them... The Spirit of God came upon us, and we were awakened, aroused, and made to live. Do you remember that?" Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"You who wish to understand the Scriptures, seek this light from above, for this is the true light. Other lights may mislead, but this is clear and sure... When the Spirit of truth is come, he pours daylight into the darkness, and leads us into all truth. He does not merely show the truth, but he leads us into it, so that we stand within it, and rejoice in the hid treasure which it contains." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"We do not find the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity set forth in Scripture in formal terms, such as those which are employed in the Athanasian creed; but the truth is continually taken for granted, as if it were a fact well known in the church of God. If not laid down very often, in so many words, it is everywhere held in solution, and it is mentioned incidentally, in connection with other truths in a way which renders it quite as distinct as if it were expressed in a set formula. In many passages it is brought before us so prominently that we must be willfully blind if we do not note it." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIV, Adoption - The Spirit And The Cry |
"The apostle sets before his new converts, not a modified system of right and wrong, but the purest virtues and the most heavenly graces. As the ages have rolled on, we have seen the wisdom of holding up from the first an elevated standard, both of doctrine and practice. We must not bring the standard down to the men, but the men up to the standard. We may not, with the design of making converts more rapidly, alter the pure Word with which our Lord has entrusted us." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Filling With The Spirit And Drunkenness With Wine |
"When the Spirit of God comes into a man with extraordinary power, so as to fill his soul, he brings to his soul a joy, a delight, an elevation of mind, a delightful and healthful excitement, which lifts him up above the dull dead-level of ordinary life, and causes him to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Filling With The Spirit And Drunkenness With Wine |
"If you take your hats off to the devil to-day, you will have to take your shoes off to him soon; and by-and-by you will become utterly his slaves." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Filling With The Spirit And Drunkenness With Wine |
"The final perseverance of the saints, is one of the greatest miracles on record; in fact, it is the sum total of miracles." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol V, Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"Faith that is unsealed may be a poison, it may be presumption; but faith that is sealed by the Spirit is true, real, genuine faith. Never be content, my dear hearers, unless you are sealed, unless you are sure, by the inward witness and testimony of the Holy Ghost, that you have been begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol V, Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"That prayer which is not in the Holy Ghost is in the flesh; that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and we are told that they which are in the flesh cannot please God. All that cometh of our corrupt nature is defiled and marred, and cannot be acceptable with the most holy God... Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God... That desire which he writes upon our heart will move his heart and bring down a blessing, but the desires of the flesh have no power with him." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"Regenerate men, who are born of the Spirit, and live in the Spirit world are cognisant of communications between their spirits and the Holy Spirit... We know that the Divine Spirit, without the use of sounds, speaks in our hearts, that without an utterance which the ear can hear he can make our soul know his presence and understand his meaning." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"Beware of hit-or-miss prayers." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"Praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in fervency. Cold prayers, my brethren, ask the Lord not to hear them. Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all. As well speak of lukewarm fire as of lukewarm prayer; it is essential that it be red-hot. Real prayer is burnt as with hot iron into a man's soul, and then comes forth from the man's soul like coals of juniper which have a most vehement heat. Such prayers none but the Holy Ghost can give." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"Praying in the Spirit - blessed word! - then with such prayer it is an absolute certainty that I must succeed with God in prayer... If the Spirit teaches you to pray, it is as certain as that twice two make four, that God will give you what you are seeking for." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"He who in his soul believes that man does of his own free-will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that he gives both; that he is Alpha and Omega in the salvation of men." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol I, Free Will - A Slave |
"The blessings of salvation are freely given us of God, therefore they are not a loan, handed to us for a time, and to be one day recalled... The gifts and calling of God are without repentance on his part. When he has given it, the deed is done outright, and can never be reversed. O believer, if thy sin be blotted out, it can never be written in again!" Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Grace For Grace |
"If thou hast God, thou hast him by an eternal holding, of which none can deprive thee." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Grace For Grace |
"You think that if you had a long hand you could reach the grace of God. No, but if you have a withered hand, that grace can reach you." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Grace For Grace |
"Never, never can we permit the idea of the mutability of grace, - grace given today, and taken away tomorrow. I repeat what I have often said. If grace could be given to a man temporarily, and then taken away from him, I cannot imagine a more awful malediction than that grace would really be. I would sooner perish as that fallen angel, that great sinner, Satan, than as one whom God had loved, if he did not love me for ever; because, to give grace, and then to take it away, would be the most awful method of tantalizing that was ever known. Better for God to send no gospel if he did not send an everlasting one." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XLVIII, The Glory Of Grace |
"The freeness of grace is not inconsistent with the sovereignty of it. Albeit that none ever drink of that sacred fountain but those whom God sweetly constrains to drink; if men do not drink, the fault lies with them, and their blood will he on their own head for ever." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XLVIII, The Glory Of Grace |
"The apostle says, Ye are saved. Not ye shall be, or ye may be; but ye are saved. He says not, Ye are partly saved, nor in the way to being saved, nor hopeful of salvation; but by grace are ye saved. Let us be as clear on this point as he was, and let us never rest till we know that we are saved. At this moment we are either saved or unsaved. That is clear." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol LXI, All Of Grace |
"If my Lord Jesus gives you salvation at this moment, you have it, and you have it for ever. He will never take it back again; and if he does not take it from you, who can? If he saves you now through faith, you are saved-so saved that you shall never perish, neither shall any pluck you out of his hand." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol LXI, All Of Grace |
"I must offer the same excuse, then, for bringing before you this morning the subject of regeneration. It is one of absolute and vital importance; it is the hinge of the gospel; it is the point upon which most Christians are agreed, yea, all who are Christians in sincerity and truth. It is a subject which lies at the very basis of salvation. It is the very groundwork of our hopes for heaven, and as we ought to be very careful of the basement of our structure, so should we be very diligent to take heed that we are really born again, and that we have made sure work of it for eternity. There are many who fancy they are born again who are not. It well becomes us, then, frequently to examine ourselves; and it is the minister's duty to bring forward those subjects which lead to self-examination, and have a tendency to search the heart and try the reins of the children of men." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol III, Regeneration |
"No man in the world can make himself to be born of God; though he should struggle never so much." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol III, Regeneration |
"Sinners in hell are not the fools they were on earth; in hell they do not laugh at everlasting burnings; in the pit they do not despise the words, eternal fire." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol III, Regeneration |
"You came to hear me preach today, as you would have gone to the opera or playhouse; you thought I should amuse you. Ah I that is not my aim, God is my witness, I came here solemnly in earnest, to wash my hands of your blood. If you are damned, any one of you, it shall not be because I did not warn you." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol III, Regeneration |
"We are often told (I mean those of us who are commonly nicknamed by the title of Calvinists - and we are not very much ashamed of that; we think that Calvin, after all, knew more about the gospel than almost any man who has ever lived, uninspired) - We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, No, certainly not. We ask them the next question - Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer No. They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say No, Christ has died that any man may be saved if - and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say, then, we will just go back to the old statement - Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anybody, did he? You must say No; you are obliged to say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace, and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody, We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ's death; we say, No, my dear sir, it is you that do it. We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it." Particular Redemption |
"The Holy Ghost is here, and we ought to expect his divine working among us: and if he does not so work we should search ourselves to see what it is that hindereth, and whether there may not be somewhat in ourselves which vexes him, so that he restrains his sacred energy, and doth not work among us as he did aforetime." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"Fire, intensity, zeal, passion as much as you will, but as for aiming at effect by polished phrases and brilliant periods - these are fitter for those who would deceive men than for those who would tell them the message of the Most High." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"The preachers of Pentecost told of the Spirit's work by the Spirit's power: conversion, repentance, renewal, faith, holiness, and such things were freely spoken of and ascribed to their real author, the divine Spirit." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"If the Spirit of God shall give us once again a full and fiery ministry we shall hear it clearly proclaimed, YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN, and we shall see a people forthcoming which are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God, and by the energy which cometh from heaven. A Holy Ghost ministry cannot be silent about the Holy Ghost and his sacred operations upon the heart." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"Ever remember that, in the things of God, knowledge is only to be gained by personal experience. If you would understand regeneration, you must be born again." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XL, Once Dead, Now Alive |
"The Spirit of God must come, and make the letter alive to you, transfer it to your heart, set it on fire and make it burn within you, or else its divine force and majesty will be hid from your eyes." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, Our Urgent Need Of The Holy Spirit |
"Whatever is to be revealed by the Spirit to any of us is in the word of God already - he adds nothing to the Bible, and never will." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVIII, The Paraclete |
"Justification by faith is a most precious truth, it is the very pith and heart of the gospel, and yet you can dwell so exclusively upon it that you cause many to forget other important practical and experimental truths, and so do them serious mischief... Hence the Holy Ghost in this chapter lays equal stress upon the necessity of the new birth or the work of the Holy Spirit, and he states it quite as plainly as the other grand truth... The new birth must be experienced that we may have the nature of children." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, The Heavenly Wind |
"He who perishes in sin has no one to blame but himself, but he who is saved ascribes it all to grace - why came that grace to him?... But why works he in us? Why in any of the chosen? Ah, why? The wind bloweth where it listeth." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, The Heavenly Wind |
"Oh, what grief it is that some never get any further than this, but abide where Nicodemus was at the first: they hear the sound thereof and nothing more." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIII, The Heavenly Wind |
"By the written Word, his sayings are handed down to us infallibly. Often times, when the Holy Spirit rests upon God's servants, they become as the voice of Christ to us; and when that same blessed Spirit, as the Comforter, brings to our remembrance the things of Christ, seems it not as though Jesus himself spoke to our souls?" Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol LXI, Attention! |
"Pentecost is not the harvest. We have been accustomed to look on Pentecost as a great and wonderful display of divine power, not at all to be equaled in modern times. Brethren, it is to be exceeded." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol X, The Superlative Excellency Of The Holy Spirit |
"A man's conversion is nothing, his believing is nothing, his profession is nothing unless he is made to be a new creature in Christ Jesus... If our faith has not brought with it the Holy Spirit, if, indeed, it is not the fruit of the Spirit, and we are not changed in nature and in life, then our faith is presumption, and our profession is a lie." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXX, Receiving The Holy Ghost |
"The divine communications of the Holy Spirit are the precious heritage of true saints; but they are a peculiar voice to their own souls, and are not to be repeated in words." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"As many of you as know that inward mystic baptism into Christ know also that henceforth you have put on Christ and are covered by him as a man is by his garment." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIV, Adoption - The Spirit And The Cry |
"The Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son... when Jehovah sent him he made his way, without violating your will, but yet with irresistible power." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXIV, Adoption - The Spirit And The Cry |
"Why, there have been times when you and I have so grasped the knocker of the gate of mercy, and have let it fall with such tremendous force, that it seemed as if the very gate itself did shake and totter; there have been seasons when we have laid hold upon the angel, have overcome heaven by prayer, have declared we would not let Jehovah himself go except he should bless us. We have, and we say it without blasphemy, moved the arm that moves the world. We have brought down upon us the eyes that look upon the universe. All this we have done, not by our own strength, but by the might and by the power of the Spirit." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol V, Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"Pray for that which God the Spirit moves you to pray for, and be very sensitive of the Holy Spirit's influence... Real prayer is burnt as with hot iron into a man's soul, and then comes forth from the man's soul like coals of juniper which have a most vehement heat. Such prayers none but the Holy Ghost can give." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XII, Praying In The Holy Ghost |
"God thinks what he says, and the thoughts of God are embodied in the person, work, life, and death of Jesus Christ." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XLIV, Living On The Word |
"A great many things, when they are said to be explained by modern thinkers, are merely explained away, and I have not yet begun to learn that wretched art." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Gratitude For Deliverance From The Grave |
"There is not a more profitable instrument in all God's house than the rod." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Gratitude For Deliverance From The Grave |
"God had one Son without sin, but he never had a son without sorrow, and he never will have while the world stands." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Gratitude For Deliverance From The Grave |
"The Lord scourges his sons, but he does not slay them." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Gratitude For Deliverance From The Grave |
"There are two great truths, which from this platform I have proclaimed for many years. The first is, that salvation is free to every man who will have it; the second is, that God gives salvation to a people whom he has chosen; and these two truths are not in conflict with one another in the least degree." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Thou Art Now The Blessed Of The Lord |
"He that is master of the knowledge of the covenants has the key of true divinity." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Thou Art Now The Blessed Of The Lord |
"What is the difference between a believer's life here and a believer's life there? Only this: here Christ is with us, and there we are with Christ." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Thou Art Now The Blessed Of The Lord |
"He that believeth in Jesus hath all the blessing which Jesus can give to him: forgiveness for the past, grace for the present, and glory for the future." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Thou Art Now The Blessed Of The Lord |
"No man hath any right to believe God to be his Father except through the new birth." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Blessing For Blessing |
"Our predestination is according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Blessing For Blessing |
"You hath he quickened is true of all who are quickened. It is a divine spark, a light from the great central Sun of light, the great Father of lights. Is it so with us? Have we had a divine touch, a superhuman energy, a something which all the learning and all the wisdom and all the godliness of man could never work in us? Have we been quickened from above? If so, I daresay that we remember something of it." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Life From The Dead |
"Do you remember when the new life came into you? I do." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Life From The Dead |
"He that has the divine life is lifted up into the infinities; he gets to hear that which cannot be heard, and to see that which cannot be seen, for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit when he has given us the new life." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Life From The Dead |
"Holy Scripture is not complimentary to unrenewed human nature. You may search it through and through to find a single flattering word to unregenerate men; but you will search in vain." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Life From The Dead |
"It needs the Trinity to make a Christian, and when you have got a Christian, it needs the Trinity to make a prayer. You cannot pray a single prayer aright without Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, Life From The Dead |
"Can you not remember, dearly-beloved, that day of days, that best and brightest of hours, when first you saw the Lord, lost your burden, received the roll of promise, rejoiced in full salvation, and went on your way in peace? My soul can never forget that day." Autobiography, The Great Change |
"How many are there externally religious, with whose characters you could find no fault, but who have never had the regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost?" The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume I, Christ Crucified |
"What is it to be born again, then? Very briefly, to be born again is to undergo a change so mysterious, that human words cannot speak of it... But while it is so mysterious, it is a change which is known and felt. People are not born again when they are in bed and asleep, so that they do not know it. They feel it; they experience it. Galvanism, or the power of electricity, may be mysterious; but they produce a feeling - a sensation. So does the new birth... Let me tell you, moreover, that this change is a supernatural one. It is not one that a man performs upon himself... It is a supernatural change -- something which man cannot do, and which only God can effect, which the Bible itself cannot accomplish without the attendant Spirit of God." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume I, The Victory Of Faith |
"I should despair of any success in preaching a gospel which I had only to offer, its effects depending upon the voluntary acceptance of it by unrenewed and unregenerate men. If I did not believe that there was a might going forth with the word of Jesus, which makes men willing in the day of his power, and which turns them from the error of their ways by the mighty, overwhelming constraining force of a divine and mysterious influence, I should cease to glory in the cross of Christ, Christ, we repeat, is mighty, not merely to put men into a salvable condition, but mighty absolutely and entirely to save them." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume III, A Mighty Saviour |
"When a man is converted to God, it is done in a moment. Regeneration is an instantaneous work." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume IV, The Outpouring Of The Holy Spirit |
"Regeneration is the instantaneous work of God’s sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume IV, The New Heart |
"Oh! said the Arminian, men may be saved if they will. We reply, My dear sir, we all believe that; but it is just the if they will that is the difficulty. We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn; nay, we do not assert it, but Christ Himself declares it—Ye will not come to me that ye might have life (John 5:40); and as long as that ye will not come stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will. It is strange how people, when talking about free-will, talk of things which they do not at all understand. Now, says one, I believe men can be saved if they will. My dear sir, that is not the question at all. The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare upon scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human being will ever be constrained towards Christ." Human Inability |
"God never treats man as though he were a brute; He does not drag him with cart ropes; He treats men as men; and when He binds them with cords, they are the cords of love and the bands of a man. I may exercise power over another’s will, and yet that other man’s will may be perfectly free; because the constraint is exercised in a manner accordant with the laws of the human mind. If I show a man that a certain line of action is much for his advantage, he feels bound to follow it, but he is perfectly free in so doing. If man’s will were subdued or chained by some physical process, if man’s heart should, for instance, be taken from him and be turned round by a manual operation, that would be altogether inconsistent with human freedom, or indeed with human nature; and yet I think some few people imagine that we mean this when we talk of constraining influence and Divine grace. We mean nothing of the kind; we mean that Jehovah Jesus knows how, by irresistible arguments addressed to the understanding, by mighty reasons appealing to the affections, and by the mysterious influence of His Holy Spirit operating upon all the powers and passions of the soul, so to subdue the whole man, that whereas it was once rebellious it becomes obedient; whereas it stood stoutly against the Most High, it throws down the weapons of its rebellion and cries, I yield! I yield! subdued by sovereign love, and by the enlightenment which Thou hast bestowed upon me, I yield myself to Thy will." John 6:37 |
"The Holy Spirit is the Author of all spiritual life. Speak of regeneration, the Holy Spirit is the Regenerator. No man can receive that divine life which comes into him at the new birth except by the Spirit of God. We are raised from our death in sin into a new and holy life by the working of the Holy Ghost, and by that alone. Now, if someone here, hitherto incapable of a holy life, or of serving God right because of his natural depravity, should be quickened by the Holy Ghost, what a change would be at once wrought upon him!" The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume LXII, A Gospel Promise |
"Temporal mercies betoken the freeness of the divine bounty, but they are never bestowed as the earnest of God’s special love. Such inferior gifts he often lavishes in abundance upon those who are not his people. Spiritual blessings he reserves for his own redeemed, regenerate family." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume LXI, Blessings Manifold And Marvellous |
"Grace brings into the heart an entirely foreign element. It does not improve and perpetuate; it kills and makes alive... Grace, when it comes unto us, is like a firebrand dropped into the sea, where it would certainly be quenched were it not of such a miraculous quality that it baffles the water-floods, and sets up its reign of fire and light even in the depths." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume LXI, All Of Grace |
"Those of us who have passed through any spiritual conflicts know that Satan is a terribly real personage." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXXVIII, A Challenge And A Shield |
"I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, which are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus." Election - Sermon - September 2, 1885 |
"Of course if the people are called elect, there must be election. If Jesus Christ and his apostles were accustomed to style believers by the title of elect, we must certainly believe that they were so, otherwise the term does not mean anything." Election - Sermon - September 2, 1885 |
"God gives liberally to all those who desire; and first of all, he makes them desire, otherwise they never would." Election - Sermon - September 2, 1885 |
"God GIVES faith, therefore he could not have elected men on account of faith which he foresaw... To say that God elected men because he foresaw they would have faith, which is salvation in the germ, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment. Faith is the GIFT of God. Every virtue comes from him." Election - Sermon - September 2, 1885 |
"The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, is the truth that I must preach today, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again." Autobiography, Vol I, p 162 |
"The word Calvinism, is frequently used here as the short word which embraces that part of divine truth which teaches that salvation is by grace alone, but it is not hence to be imagined that we attach any authority to the opinion of John Calvin, other than that which is due to every holy man who is ordained of God to proclaim his truth. We use the word simply for shortness of expression, and because the enemies of free grace will then be quite sure of what we mean. It is our firm belief, that what is commonly called Calvinism, is neither more nor less than the good old gospel of the Puritans, the Martyrs, the Apostles, and of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume I, Preface |
"I am as firm a believer in the doctrines of grace as any man living, and a true Calvinist after the order of John Calvin himself." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XIV, Lingerers Hastened |
"We glory in the same cross as Paul did, and preach the same gospel as Augustine, and Calvin, and Whitefield, and the like." The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XXIII, A Cheery Word In Troublous Times |
"There is no end to the interest which attaches to such a man as George Whitefield. Often as I have read his life, I am conscious of distinct quickening whenever I turn to it. He LIVED. Other men seem to be only half-alive; but Whitefield was all life, fire, wing, force. My own model, if I may have such a thing in due subordination to my Lord, is George Whitefield; but with unequal footsteps must I follow in his glorious track." Autobiography, First Literary Friends |
"Unto us who are called. I received a note this week asking me to explain that word called; because in one passage it says, Many are called but few are chosen, while in another it appears that all who are called must be chosen. Now, let me observe that there are two calls. As my old friend, John Bunyan, says, the hen has two calls, the common cluck, which she gives daily and hourly, and the special one, which she means for her little chickens. So there is a general call, a call made to every man; every man hears it. Many are called by it; all you are called this morning in that sense, but very few are chosen. The other is a special call, the children's call. You know how the bell sounds over the workshop, to call the men to work - that is a general call. A father goes to the door and calls out, John, it is dinner time - that is the special call. Many are called with the general call, but they are not chosen; the special call is for the children only, and that is what is meant in the text, Unto us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God. That call is always a special one. While I stand here and call men, nobody comes; while I preach to sinners universally, no good is done; it is like the sheet lightning you sometimes see on the summer's evening, beautiful, grand; but whoever heard of anything being struck by it? But the special call is the forked flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere; it is the arrow sent in between the joints of the harness. The call which saves is like that of Jesus, when he said Mary, and she said unto him Rabonni. Do you know anything about that special call, my beloved? Did Jesus ever call you by name? Canst thou recollect the hour when he whispered thy name in thine ear, when he said, Come to me? If so, you will grant the truth of what I am going to say next about it - that it is an effectual call; there is no resisting it. When God calls with his special call, there is no standing out. Ah! I know I laughed at religion; I despised, I abhorred it; but that call! Oh, I would not come. But God said, Thou shalt come. All that the Father giveth to me shall come. Lord, I will not. But thou shalt, said God. And I have gone up to God's house sometimes almost with a resolution that I would not listen, but listen I must. Oh, how the word came into my soul! Was there a power of resistance? No; I was thrown down; each bone seemed to be broken; I was saved by effectual grace." Christ Crucified |
"How few are our apostolic men! We want again Luthers, Calvins, Bunyans, Whitefields, men fit to mark eras, whose names breathe terror in our foemen's ears. We have dire need of such." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XX, The Power Of The Risen Saviour |
"I could not make another man understand the force of an electric shock unless he has felt it. It would not be likely at all that he would believe in those secret energies which move the world, unless he had some means of testing for himself. And those of you that never felt the Spirit's energy, are as much strangers to it as a stone would be. You are out of your element when you hear of the Spirit. You know nothing of his divine power; you have never been taught of him." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, The Teaching Of The Holy Ghost |
"Do you, dear friend, know anything about this salvation which is all of God? I fear that there are many who have no more religion than they have made themselves. Their religion is the result of their own efforts to improve themselves... God must save you, or you will be lost for ever. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity in Unity, must come upon you, and quicken you into newness of life, and renew you in the spirit of your mind, or else you will fall short of that which is requisite for admission into the kingdom of God; That which is born of the flesh is flesh... I, personally, know that it is God's salvation that has saved me; and I think I speak the mind of many here when I say that they feel that, if the Holy Spirit does not work in them from the first to the last, their salvation will never be accomplished. I do not know any doctrine which my experience more fully confirms than that to which Jonah gave utterance when he was in the whale's belly, Salvation is of the Lord." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol L, Christ's Crowning Glory |
"If you trust in earthly helpers, and think them essential, God will not bless their efforts, and they will be of no use to you." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXVIII, Impotence And Omnipotence |
"I take leave to contradict those who say that salvation is an evolution. All that ever can be evolved out of the sinful heart of man is sin, and nothing else. Salvation is the free gift of God, by Jesus Christ, and the work of it is supernatural." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXVIII, Impotence And Omnipotence |
"If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith. He will never allow you to think better of Him than He is; He will come up to the mark of your thoughts, and according to your faith so shall it be done unto you." Autobiography -- Childhood Incidents |
"It is said by some that children cannot understand the great mysteries of religion. We even know some Sunday-school teachers who cautiously avoid mentioning the great doctrines of the gospel, because they think the children are not prepared to receive them. Alas! the same mistake has crept into the pulpit; for it is currently believed, among a certain class of preachers, that many of the doctrines of the Word of God, although true, are not fit to be taught to the people, since they would pervert them to their own destruction. Away with such priestcraft! Whatever God has revealed ought to be preached. Whatever He has revealed, if I am not capable of understanding it, I will still believe and preach it. I do hold that there is no doctrine of the Word of God which a child, if he be capable of salvation, is not capable of receiving. I would have children taught all the great doctrines of truth without a solitary exception, that they may in their after days hold fast by them." Autobiography -- Early Religious Impressions |
"Sovereign grace is dear to those who have groaned deeply because they see what grievous sinners they are." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"A spiritual experience which is thoroughly flavored with a deep and bitter sense of sin is of great value to him that hath had it... Possibly, much of the flimsy piety of the present day arises from the ease with which men attain to peace and joy in these evangelistic days... Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honour of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"Our Heavenly Father does not usually cause us to seek the Saviour till He has whipped us clean out of all our confidence; He cannot make us in earnest after Heaven till He has made us feel something of the intolerable tortures of an aching conscience, which is a foretaste of hell." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"Before I thought upon my soul's salvation, I dreamed that my sins were very few. All my sins were dead, as I imagined, and buried in the graveyard of forgetfulness. But that trumpet of conviction, which aroused my soul to think of eternal things, sounded a resurrection-note to all my sins; and, oh, how they rose up in multitudes more countless than the sands of the sea! Now, I saw that my very thoughts were enough to damn me, that my words would sink me lower than the lowest hell; and as for my acts of sin, they now began to be a stench in my nostrils, so that I could not bear them." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"Self-righteousness is as rapid a road to ruin as outward sin itself. We may as certainly destroy ourselves by opposing the righteousness of Christ as by transgressing the law of God. Self-righteousness is as much an insult to God as blasphemy is, and God will never accept it, neither shall any soul enter Heaven by it." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"The general call of the gospel is like the sheet lightning we sometimes see on a summer's evening, beautiful, grand, but who ever heard of anything being struck by it? But the special call is the forked flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"If I had listened to the Arminian theory, I should never have been converted, for it never had any charms for me. A Saviour who casts away His people, a God who leaves His children to perish, is not worthy of my worship; and a salvation which does not save outright is neither worth preaching nor worth listening to." Autobiography -- Through Much Tribulation |
"The emancipated galley-slave may forget the day which heard his broken fetters rattle on the ground; the pardoned traitor may fail to remember the moment when the ax of the headsman was averted by a pardon; and the long-despairing mariner may not recollect the moment when a friendly hand snatched him from the hungry deep; but O hour of forgiven sin, moment of perfect pardon, our soul shall never forget thee." Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
"It was not so much that I feared hell, as that I feared sin; and all the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honor of God’s name, and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if I could be forgiven unjustly... It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read in Scripture that Jesus was declared to be the propitiation for sins that God might be just. I believe it will have to come as a revelation to every newborn child of God whenever he sees it; I mean that glorious doctrine of the substitution of the Lord Jesus... I was made to see that He who is the Son of God, co-equal, and co-eternal with the Father, had of old been made the covenant Head of a chosen people, that He might in that capacity suffer for them and save them." Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
"When the Word of the Lord came to me with power, it was as new as if I had lived among the unvisited tribes of Central Africa, and had never heard the tidings of the cleansing fountain filled with blood, drawn from the Savior’s veins... When I first discovered what faith really was, and exercised it --for with me these two things came together, I believed as soon as ever I knew what believing meant -- then I thought I had never before heard that truth preached." Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
"Can you not remember, dearly-beloved, that day of days, that best and brightest of hours, when first you saw the Lord?" Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
"As the night of Israel's passover was a night to be remembered, a theme for bards, and an incessant fountain of grateful song, even so is the time of which we now tell, the never-to-be-forgotten hour of our emancipation from guilt, and our justification in Jesus." Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
I have always considered, with Luther and Calvin, that the sum and substance of the gospel lies in that word SUBSTITUTION - Christ standing in the stead of man." Autobiography -- The Great Change - Conversion |
"Our faith at times has to fight for its very existence. The old Adam within us rages mightily, and the new spirit within us, like a young lion, disdains to be vanquished; and so these two strong ones contend, till our spirit is full of agony... In such inward conflicts, saints must be alone. They cannot tell their feelings to others, they would not dare; and if they did, their Own brethren would despise or upbraid them, for the most of professors would not even know what they meant." Autobiography -- Experiences After Conversion |
"I remember when I felt upon my finger the ring of infinite, everlasting, covenant love that Christ put there. Oh, it was a joyful day, a blessed day!" Autobiography -- Experiences After Conversion |
"When the Spirit came with His Divine life, and quickened all the Book to my newly-enlightened soul, the inner meaning shone forth with wondrous glory." Autobiography -- Experiences After Conversion |
"The gospel is the sum of wisdom, an epitome of knowledge, a treasure-house of truth, and a revelation of mysterious secrets." Autobiography -- Experiences After Conversion |
"No Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit." Autobiography -- A Defence Of Calvinism |
"I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else." Autobiography -- A Defence Of Calvinism |
"Nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross." Autobiography -- A Defence Of Calvinism |
"I will be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever." Autobiography -- A Defence Of Calvinism |
"The pilot who should pretend to steer a ship towards its proper haven, but who should meanwhile occupy himself below with boring holes in her keel that she might sink, would not be a worse traitor than the man who takes the helm of a church, and professes to be steering it towards Christ, while all the while he is ruining it by diluting the truth as it is in Jesus, concealing unpalatable truths, and lulling men into security with soft and flattering words." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"Unease is the road to ease and disquiet in the soul is the road to the true quiet." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"Ah, sirs! there will be a day when you will have to hear your spirit speak... When your conscience shall cry, Remember, thou hadst thy day of mercy; thou hadst thy day of the proclamation of the gospel, but thou didst reject it, then thou wilt wish, but wish in vain, for thunders to come and drown that still small voice, which shall be more terrible in the ears than even the rumbling of the earthquake or the fury of the storm." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"So you think to stifle conscience by what you will do by-and-bye. Ah, man, but will that by-and-bye ever come? And should it come, what reason is there to expect that you will then be any more ready than you are now? Hearts grow harder, sin grows stronger, vice becomes more deeply rooted by the lapse of years. You will find it certainly no easier to turn to God then than now. Now it is impossible to you, apart from divine grace; then it shall be quite as impossible, and if I might say so, there shall be more difficulties in the way then than even there are now." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"How few discern the spirituality of the law, the glory of the atonement, the perfection of justification, the beauty of sanctification, and the preciousness of real union to Christ. I do not marvel that we have a multitude of men who are mere professors and mere formalists, who are nevertheless quite as comfortable in their minds as though they were possessors of vital godliness, and really walked in the true fear of God." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"If you have a peace that is grounded on ignorance, get rid of it; ignorance is a thing, remember, that you are accountable for... Search the Scriptures, and remember that if you neglect this Word of God, and remain ignorant, your sins of ignorance will be sins of wilful ignorance, and therefore ignorance shall be no excuse. There is the Bible, you have it in your houses; you can read it... if you remain ignorant, charge it no more on the minister; charge it on no one but yourself, and make it no cloak for your sin." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"I could, without uncharitableness, point to churches that are hot-beds of hypocrisy, because men are taught that it is the belief of a certain set of sentiments that will save them, and not warned that this is all in vain without a real living faith in Christ." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"Oh! I do not know of a more thoroughly damnable delusion than for a man to get a conceit into his head, that he is a child of God, and yet live in sin -- to talk to you about sovereign grace, while he is living in sovereign lust -- to stand up and make himself the arbiter of what is truth, while he himself contemns the precept of God, and tramples the commandment under foot." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"Unless you hate sin of every sort, with all your heart, you are not a child of God, you are not reconciled to God by the death of his Son." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"There is a clean path to hell as well as a dirty one. There is as sure a road to perdition along the highway of morality, as down the slough of vice." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, A Blast Of The Trumpet Against False Peace |
"There is none in heaven or earth thought more despicable, more fit to be thrown away as rubbish and offal, than a man who had a Christian name, but had not the essentials of the Christian's nature." Miracles And Parables Of Our Lord - The Wedding Garment |
"Never attribute any special sorrow endured by men to some special sin... If any have met with a very sudden death, we are apt to suppose that they must have been exceedingly guilty; but it is not so... You cannot judge of a man's state before God by that which happens to him in the order of providence: and it is very unkind, and ungenerous, and almost inhuman, to sit down, like the friends of Job, and suppose that, because Job is greatly afflicted, he must therefore be greatly sinful. It is not so. All afflictions are not chastisements for sin; there are some afflictions that have quite another end and object. They are sent to refine, sent as a holy discipline, sent as sacred excavators, to make more room in the heart for Christ and his love." Miracles And Parables Of Our Lord - God's Works Made Manifest |
"Man's idolatry loves priestcraft, and therefore we should not be astonished if Ritualism were to become more and more popular, and subjugate the whole land." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol X, The Priest Dispensed With |
"The church of Rome has struggled to prove her own descent from Peter, but fails at the very beginning... The whole drift of the scheme is to elevate a clerical caste, and lay all the rest of mankind at their feet. This is the reverse of the religion of the New Testament, which says that all believers are a royal priesthood, made by the Lord Jesus kings and priests unto God." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol X, The Priest Dispensed With |
"We worship the Son of God; in him we rest and on him we lean, and we find in him all that we need... the priest with his authority is an interpolation; like the fifth wheel of a steam-engine, he is of no possible service, and a good deal in the way. He deserves to be called a superfluity of naughtiness." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol X, The Priest Dispensed With |
"This indeed, is the great reason why the Bible is written, that we may believe on the Lord Jesus and have life through his name... It seems to me to be the essence of unbelief for a man to want a minister to tell him that if he believes he is saved, when God solemnly affirms that it is so. I could not conceive myself so forsaken of God as to assume that I could assure my fellow man of his pardon, and affect to pronounce absolution by authority committed to me. Surely this were presumption to be answered for at the last great day." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol X, The Priest Dispensed With |
"I reckon it of all crimes the greatest for a man to assume to mediate between men and God. Little as I respect the devil I prefer him to a priest who pretends to forgive sins; for even the devil has too much honesty about him to pretend to give absolution in God's name. There is but one pardoning priest, and he is the Son of the Highest. His one sacrifice has ended all other sacrifices; his one atonement has rendered all future oblations an imposture... I count no words too severe. If my every speech should be a thunderbolt and every word a lightning flash, it would not be too strong to protest against the accursed system which once degraded the whole earth to kiss the Pope's foot, and is degrading our nation still." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol X, The Priest Dispensed With |
"I had rather receive the title of S.S.T. (Sunday School Teacher) than M.A., B.A., or any other honour that ever was conferred by men." Autobiography -- Beginning To Serve The Lord |
"Could you roll all sins into one mass; could you take murder, and blasphemy, and lust, and adultery, and fornication, and every thing that is vile, and unite them all into one vast globe of black corruption, they would not equal even then the sin of unbelief. This is the monarch sin, the quintessence of guilt; the mixture of the venom of all crimes; the dregs of the wine of Gomorrah: it is the A1 sin; the master-piece of Satan; the chief work of the devil." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol II, The Sin Of Unbelief |
"Virtues without faith are whitewashed sins; obedience without faith, if it is possible, is a gilded disobedience. Not to believe nullifies every thing." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol II, The Sin Of Unbelief |
"Unbelief, you see, has the Cain-mark upon its forehead. God hates it; God has dealt hard blows upon it; and God will ultimately crush it. Unbelief dishonours God. Every other crime touches God's territory; but unbelief aims a blow at his divinity, impeaches his veracity, denies his goodness, blasphemes his attributes, maligns his character; therefore, God, of all things, hates first and chiefly, unbelief, wherever it is." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol II, The Sin Of Unbelief |
"You may turn over this whole book [the Bible], and you will find that there is no atonement for the man who died in unbelief; there is no mercy for him." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol II, The Sin Of Unbelief |
"Without doubt, it is the doctrine of Scripture, that those who are saved are saved because God chose them to be saved, and are called as the effect of that first choice of God." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol III, Particular Election |
"The most religious men may be the most godless men, and sometimes a godly man may seem to be irreligious." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol III, Particular Election |
"God hates a depraved nature, and therefore it must be taken away before we can be accepted in him. God does not hate our sin so much as he does our sinfulness. It is not the overflowing of the spring, it is the well itself." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"To give a man a new heart and a new spirit is God's work, and the work of God alone. Arminianism falls to the ground when we come to this point. Nothing will do here but that old-fashioned truth men call Calvinism." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"In the moment when God puts a new life into the soul, the man is passive; and if there be aught of activity, it is an active resistance against it, until God, by overcoming, victorious grace, gets the mastery over man's will." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"No man ever did, or ever will, seek a new heart, or a right spirit, until, first of all, the grace of God begins with him." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"Man revolts against his Maker and his Saviour; but where God determines to save, save he will. God will have the sinner, if he designs to have him. God never was thwarted yet in any one of his purposes. Man does resist will all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of the Most High when he rideth forth in the chariot of his salvation. He doth irresistibly save and victoriously conquer man's heart." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"To sanctify a man is the work of the whole life; but to give a man a new heart is the work of an instant. In one solitary second, swifter than the lightning flash, God can put a new heart into a man, and make him a new creature in Christ Jesus... Regeneration is the instantaneous work of God's sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace." Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol V, The New Heart |
"In the salvation of every person there is an actual putting forth of the divine power, whereby the dead sinner is quickened, the unwilling sinner is made willing, the desperately hard sinner has his conscience made tender; and he who rejected God and despised Christ, is brought to cast himself down at the feet of Jesus." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol III, Regeneration |
"We must have no truce, no treaty with Rome. War! war to the knife with her! Peace there cannot be. She cannot have peace with us -- we cannot have peace with her. She hates the true Church, and we can only say that the hatred is reciprocated. We would not lay a hand upon her priests; we would not touch a hair of their heads. Let them be free; but their doctrine we would destroy from the face of the earth as the doctrine of devils." War! War! War! |
"Some say that man may of himself attain unto salvation — that if he hear the Word, it is in his power to receive it, to believe it, and to have a saving change worked in him by it. To this we reply, you do not know what man is by nature, otherwise you would never have ventured upon such an assertion. Holy Scripture tells us that man by nature is dead in trespasses and sins... When ye shall see dead men raising themselves from their graves, when ye shall see them unwinding their own sheets, opening their own coffin-lids, and walking down our streets alive and animate, as the result of their own power, then perhaps ye may believe that souls that are dead in sin may turn to God, may recreate their own natures, and may make themselves heirs of heaven, though before they were heirs of wrath. But mark, not till then." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"No man will come. Here lies the deadly mischief; not only that he is powerless to do good, but that he is powerful enough to do that which is wrong, and that his will is desperately set against every thing that is right. Go, Armenian, and tell your hearers that they will come if they please, but know that your Redeemer looks you in the face, and tells you that you are uttering a lie. Men will not come. They never will come of themselves... Until the Spirit draw them, come they neither will, nor can." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"It has been well remarked by a great writer, that he never knew a man who held any great theological error, who did not also hold a doctrine which diminished the depravity of man. The Armenian says man is fallen, it is true, but then he has power of will left, and that will is free; he can raise himself. He diminishes the desperate character of the fall of man." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"Once believe man to be what Scripture says he is -- once believe his heart to be depraved, his affections perverted, his understanding darkened, his will perverse, and you must hold that if such a wretch as that be saved, it must be the work of the Spirit of God, and of the Spirit of God alone." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"But do you know any learned men that are made the means of bringing souls to Christ, to any great degree?... Do you know any great men -- men great in learning and wisdom -- who have become spiritual fathers in our Israel? Is it not a fact that stares us in the face, that our fashionable preachers, our eloquent preachers, our learned preachers, are just the most useless men in creation for the winning of souls to Christ." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"Why, the Lord hath been pleased always to make it so, that he will clothe with power the weak and the foolish, but he will not clothe with power those who, if good were done, might be led to ascribe the excellence of the power to their learning, their eloquence, or their position." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"All which has been done by God the Father, and all that has been done by God the Son must be ineffectual to us, unless the Spirit shall reveal these things to our souls." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"Through my calling, I see my election, and, knowing myself to be called of God, I know myself to have been chosen of God from before the foundation of the world. It is a precious thing -- that doctrine of election -- to a child of God." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"No angel ever revealed to any man that he was chosen of God; but the Spirit doth it." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"We know that Christ did stand in the room, place, and stead of all his people, and that all those who shall appear in heaven will appear there as an act of justice as well as of grace, seeing that Christ was punished in their room and stead, and that it would have been unjust if God punished them, seeing that he had punished Christ for them. We believe that Christ, having paid all their debts, they have a right to their freedom in Christ -- that Christ having covered them with his righteousness, they are entitled to eternal life as much as if they had themselves been perfectly holy." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"The Spirit is absolutely necessary. Without him neither the works of the Father, nor of the Son, are of any avail to us." The Necessity Of The Spirit's Work |
"I perceive among the very best of the saints a considerable number who are deeply anxious as to their state before God. Those who will one day be cast out of the wedding feast are feeding themselves without fear, while those who have the most right to enjoy the banquet are full of gracious anxiety... Holy fear spreads few banquets, but it takes care that when there is a feast we go to it in a wedding garment." Miracles And Parables Of Our Lord - The Wedding Garment |
"The general acceptance of our students in Scotland is one remarkable proof that they stand by the old Calvinistic, Evangelical doctrines. The Presbyterian Churches of Rofterdam and Amsterdam, which are frequently supplied by our students, and are resolutely orthodox, have again and again sent us pleasing testimony that our men carry to them the old theology of the Westminster Assembly’s Confession. Let wiseacres say what they will, there is more truth in that venerable Confession than could be found in ten thousand volumes of the school of affected culture and pretentious thoughtfulness. Want of knowing what the old theology is, is in most cases the reason for ridiculing it. Believing that the Puritanic school embodied more of gospel truth in it than any other’ since the days of the apostles, we continue in the same line of things; and, by God’s help, hope to have a share in that revival of Evangelical doctrine which is as sure to come as the Lord Himself." Autobiography, A New School Of The Prophets |
"A yet further charge against us is, that we dare not preach the gospel to the unregenerate, that, in fact, our theology is so narrow and cramped that we cannot preach to sinners. Gentlemen, if you dare to say this, I would take you to any library in the world where the old Puritan fathers are stored up, and I would let you take down any one volume and tell me if you ever read more telling exhortations and addresses to sinners in any of your own books. Did not Bunyan plead with sinners, and whoever classed him with any but the Calvinist? Did not Charnock, Goodwin, and Howe agonise for souls, and what were they but Calvinist? Did not Jonathan Edwards preach to sinners, and who more clear and explicit on these doctrinal matters. The works of our innumerable divines teem with passionate appeals to the unconverted. Oh, sirs, if I should begin the list, time should fail me. It is an indisputable fact that we have labored more than they all for the winning of souls. Was George Whitfield any the less seraphic? Did his eyes weep the fewer tears or his bowels move with the less compassion because he believed in God’s electing love and preached the sovereignty of the Most High? It is an unfounded calumny." An Exposition Of The Doctrines Of Grace |
"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all -- to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, "Lord, save, or we perish." We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, "I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other," marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol VI, High Doctrine |
"Divine truth, when merely heard, takes no effect upon the mind until the Spirit of God enlivens it, and then it becomes a quickening force. He makes the truth itself, in its reality and substance, to enter the soul, and affect the heart. He is the teacher of truth, and he is himself the active power that makes truth to be truth to us in the assurance of our inmost souls." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"Let us not talk, as some do, as if Scriptural doctrine were of little or no consequence; for where the doctrine is not of God, the Spirit of Truth is grieved, and he will depart from such a ministry." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"Farewell to the witness of the Spirit in the hearts of men when men are taught the inventions of men in the place of the revelation of God." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"In what a powerful light does the Holy Spirit set our sin! In my discourses to you about sin I try to show you how heinous it is, and how terrible are its consequences; but when a single beam from the Spirit of Truth shines upon sin, it makes it appear exceeding sinful... This revelation of darkness is the effect of light, the light of the Spirit of God; and when he convinces us of sin we begin to know him." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"When the Spirit of God came, as in a moment, you saw Jesus as the consolation of Israel, the Friend of sinners, the atoning Sacrifice, the Surety of the covenant of grace, and sweet peace came streaming into your soul! At that time you did not only know that the Holy Spirit leads to Jesus Christ, but you knew that he was leading you. In that respect you knew him by an experimental acquaintance, which is the best of knowledge." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"Dear young believers, you who wish to understand the Scriptures, seek this light from above, for this is the true light. Other lights may mislead, but this is clear and sure. To have the Spirit of God lighting up the inner chambers of truth is a great boon." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"The divine communications of the Holy Spirit are the precious heritage of true saints; but they are a peculiar voice to their own souls, and are not to be repeated in words." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"The Spirit himself must reveal himself... We are dead by nature, and how can we know anything until he makes us alive?... We must be endowed with a spirit before we can discern the great Spirit. Flesh cannot transform itself into spirit. No, it is the Lord himself who must come and breathe into us the Spirit of Life, and then we perceive him who is the Spirit of Truth." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"You must live with the Holy Spirit, and he must dwell with you, and be in you, before you can speak of knowing him at all... Did you learn your religion of me? Then you have it all to unlearn. Did you learn it out of a book? You have need to begin again. Did you inherit it from your parents, or borrow it from your friends? Then you are still ignorant of the vital point; God is only known through himself, the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, Intimate Knowledge Of The Holy Spirit |
"We must not come back by a rapid march to the old way of altars and confessionals, and have Romish trumpery restored in a coarser form. If we make men think that conversation with ourselves or with our helpers is essential to their faith in Christ, we are taking the direct line for priestcraft. In the gospel, the sinner and the Savior are to come together, with none between. Speak upon this point very clearly, "You, sinner, sitting where you are, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall have eternal life. Do not stop till you pass into an inquiry room. Do not think it essential to confer with me. Do not suppose that I have the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, or that these godly men and women associated with me can tell you any other gospel than this -- He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." An All-Around Ministry |
"I do not understand that loyalty to Christ which is accompanied by indifference to His words. How can we reverence His person, if His own words and those of His apostles are treated with disrespect? Unless we receive Christ’s words, we cannot receive Christ; and unless we receive His apostles’ words, we do not receive Christ." An All-Around Ministry |
"If you have seen others go abroad for wool, and come home shorn, prudence would suggest that you need not go also." An All-Around Ministry |
"An unregenerate heart lies at the bottom of modern thought. Men are down-grade in doctrine because they were never put on the upgrade by the renewal of their minds." An All-Around Ministry |
"A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese; and this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Numbers of easy-minded people wink at error so long as it is committed by a clever man and a good-natured brother, who has so many fine points about him. Let each believer judge for himself; but, for our part, we have put on a few fresh bolts to our door, and we have given orders to keep the chain up; for, under color of begging the friendship of the servant, there are those about who aim at robbing THE MASTER." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"As for questionable amusements—time was when a Nonconformist minister who was known to attend the play-house would soon have found himself without a church. And justly so; for no man can long possess the confidence, even of the most worldly, who is known to be a haunter of theaters. Yet at the present time it is matter of notoriety that preachers of no mean repute defend the play-house, and do so because they have been seen there. Is it any wonder that church members forget their vows of consecration, and run with the unholy in the ways of frivolity, when they hear that persons are tolerated in the pastorate who do the same? We doubt not that, for writing these lines we shall incur the charge of prudery and bigotry, and this will but prove how low are the tone and spirit of the churches in many places. The fact is, that many would like to unite church and stage, cards and prayer, dancing and sacraments. If we are powerless to stem this torrent, we can at least warn men of its existence, and entreat them to keep out of it." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Too many ministers are toying with the deadly cobra of 'another gospel,' in the form of 'modern thought.'" Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Where the gospel is fully and powerfully preached, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, our churches not only hold their own, but win converts; but when that which constitutes their strength is gone—we mean when the gospel is concealed, and the life of prayer is slighted—the whole thing becomes a mere form and fiction." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Dissent for mere dissent’s sake would be the bitter fruit of a willful mind. Dissent as mere political partisanship is a degradation and travesty of religion. Dissent for truth’s sake, carried out by force of the life within, is noble, praiseworthy, and fraught with the highest benefits to the race." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers, and England is following in her track." Another Word Concerning The Down-Grade |
"We have had enough of The Down-Grade for ourselves when we have looked down upon it. What havoc false doctrine is making no tongue can tell. Assuredly the New Theology can do no good towards God or man; it, has no adaptation for it. If it were preached for a thousand years by all the most earnest men of the school, it would never renew a soul, nor overcome pride in a single human heart. We look down into the abyss of error, and it almost makes our head swim to think of the perilous descent; but the road of the gospel, to which we hope to keep by divine grace, is a safe and happy way." The Down-Grade Controversy - Preface |
"Of course, our unflinching faithfulness may have driven away a few friends, though we are sure it has brought us more." The Down-Grade Controversy - Preface |
"No loyal soldier could endure to see his Lord’s cause so grievously wronged by traitors." The Down-Grade Controversy - Preface |
"With the ejectment of the two thousand ministers who preferred freedom and purity of conscience to the retention of their livings, Calvinism was banished from the Church of England, excepting so far as the Articles were concerned. Arminianism took its place. Then the State Church, which the great reformers had planted, and which some of them had watered with their blood, presented the spectacle which went far to justify the sarcasm of an eminent writer, that she possessed A Popish Liturgy, a Calvinistic Creed, and an Arminian Clergy. The ejected were Calvinists almost to a man." The Down-Grade Controversy - First Article |
"In proportion as the ministers seceded from the old Puritan godliness of life, and the old Calvinistic form of doctrine, they commonly became less earnest and less simple in their preaching, more speculative and less spiritual in the matter of their discourses, and dwelt more on the moral teachings of the New Testament, than on the great central truths of revelation." The Down-Grade Controversy - First Article |
"It would be an easy step in the wrong direction to pay increased attention to academical attainments in their ministers, and less to spiritual qualifications; and to set a higher value on scholarship and oratory, than on evangelical zeal and ability to rightly divide the word of truth." The Down-Grade Controversy - First Article |
"The central truth of Calvinism, as of the Gospel, is the person and work and offices of the Lord Jesus Christ... When men begin to hesitate about, and hold back the truth in relation to him, it is a sign of an unhealthy state of soul; and when these truths are diluted, omitted, or otherwise tampered with, it is a sign which in plain words means Beware." The Down-Grade Controversy - First Article |
"But commonly it is found in theology that that which is true is not new, and that which is new is not true." The Down-Grade Controversy - First Article |
"Doctor Doddridge was as sound as he was amiable; but perhaps he was not always judicious; or more probably still, he was too judicious, and not sufficiently bold and decided. As the pastor of an influential church, and as the head of an academy which ranked higher than any other, his amiable disposition permitted him to do what men made of sterner stuff would not have done. He sometimes mingled in a fraternal manner, even exchanging pulpits, with men whose orthodoxy was called in question. It had its effect on many of the younger men, and served to lessen in the estimate of the people generally the growing, divergence of sentiment." The Down-Grade Controversy - Second Article |
"But in too many cases skeptical daring seems to have taken the place of evangelical zeal, and the husks of theological speculations are preferred to the wholesome bread of gospel truth. With some the endeavor seems to be not how steadily and faithfully they can walk in the truth, but how far they can get from it." The Down-Grade Controversy - Second Article |
"If anyone wishes to know where the tadpole of Darwinism was hatched, we could point him to the pew of the old chapel in High Street, Shrewsbury, where Mr. Darwin, his father, and we believe his father’s father, received their religious training. The chapel was built for Mr. Talents, an ejected minister; but for very many years full-blown Socinianism has been taught there." The Down-Grade Controversy - Second Article |
"If a mariner, having to traverse an unknown sea, does not put implicit confidence in his charts, and therefore does not consult them for guidance in steering the ship, he is, as anyone can see, every moment exposed to dangers of various kinds. Now, the Word of God—the Book written by holy men as they were moved by the Spirit of God—is the Christian’s chart; and though, in a ship’s company, some of the men may have little critical knowledge of navigation, the captain is supposed to be well instructed therein, and to be able, by consulting the charts, to steer the ship aright; so in reference to ministers of Christ’s gospel, and pastors of Christ’s church, which he hath purchased with his blood. The first step astray is a want of adequate faith in the divine inspiration of the sacred Scriptures. All the while a man bows to the authority of God’s Word, he will not entertain any sentiment contrary to its teaching. “To the law and to the testimony,” is his appeal concerning every doctrine. He esteems that holy Book, concerning all things, to be right, and therefore he hates every false way. But let a man question, or entertain low views of the inspiration and authority of the Bible, and he is without chart to guide him, and without anchor to hold him." The Down-Grade Controversy - Second Article |
"On all hands we hear cries for unity in this, and unity in that; but to our mind the main need of this age is not compromise, but conscientiousness. First pure, then peaceable. It is easy to cry a confederacy, but that union which is not based upon the truth of God is rather a conspiracy than a communion. Charity by all means; but honesty also. Love, of course, but love to God as well as love to men, and love of truth as well as love of union. It is exceedingly difficult in these times to preserve one’s fidelity before God and one’s fraternity among men. Should not the former be preferred to the latter if both cannot be maintained? We think so." The Down-Grade Controversy - Second Article |
"The preachers of false doctrine dislike nothing more than the premature detection of their doings. Only give them time enough to prepare men’s minds for the reception of their ‘new views,’ and they are confident of success. They have had too much time already, and any who refuse to speak out now must be held to be ‘partakers of their evil deeds." The Down-Grade Controversy - Our Reply To Sundry Critics And Enquirers |
"Throughout the wide realm of literature there seems to be a conspiracy to hate and hunt down every Scriptural truth. Let any man, especially if he belongs to an evangelical church, denounce or deny any part of the creed he has solemnly vowed to defend, and at once his fortune is made. The press makes the world ring with his fame, and even defends the dishonesty which clings to a stipend forfeited by the violation of his vow. It is far otherwise with the defender of the faith. He is mocked, insulted, and laughed to scorn. The spirit of the age is against him. So in greater or lesser measure it has always been. But when he remembers who is the prince of this world and the ruler of the age, he may be well content to possess his soul in patience." The Down-Grade Controversy - Our Reply To Sundry Critics And Enquirers |
"The gospel is too precious for us to be indifferent to its adulteration. By the love we bear to the Lord Jesus we are bound to defend the treasure with which he has put us in trust." The Down-Grade Controversy - Our Reply To Sundry Critics And Enquirers |
"A chasm is opening between the men who believe their Bibles and the men who are prepared for an advance upon Scripture. Inspiration and speculation cannot long abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and deny it; we cannot hold the doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of spiritual life from human nature; we cannot recognize the punishment of the impenitent and yet indulge the larger hope. One way or the other we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour." The Down-Grade Controversy - Our Reply To Sundry Critics And Enquirers |
"There must come with decision for truth a corresponding protest against error. Let those who will keep the narrow way keep it, and suffer for their choice; but to hope to follow the broad road at the same time is an absurdity. What communion hath Christ with Belial?" The Down-Grade Controversy - Our Reply To Sundry Critics And Enquirers |
"If we do not believe in Universalism, or in Purgatory, and if we do believe in the inspiration of Scripture, the Fall, and the great sacrifice of Christ for sin, it behoves us to see that we do not become accomplices with those who teach another gospel." The Down-Grade Controversy - The Case Probed |
"Brave men will hold to a right cause none the less tenaciously because for a season it is under a cloud. Increased difficulty only brings out increased faith, more fervent prayer, and greater zeal. The weakest of minds are those which go forward because they are borne along by the throng; the truly strong are accustomed to stand alone, and are not cast down if they find themselves in a minority." The Down-Grade Controversy - The Case Probed |
"One thing is clear to us: we cannot be expected to meet in any Union which comprehends those whose teaching is upon fundamental points exactly the reverse of that which we hold dear." The Down-Grade Controversy - The Case Probed |
"To pursue union at the expense of truth is treason to the Lord Jesus. If we are prepared to enter into solemn league and covenant for the defense of the crown-rights of King Jesus, we cannot give up the crown-jewels of his gospel for the sake of a larger charity. He is our Master and Lord, and we will keep his words: to tamper with his doctrine would be to be traitors to himself." The Down-Grade Controversy - A Fragment Upon The Down-Grade Controversy |
"Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek that gospel which rips up, and tears, and cuts, and wounds, and backs, and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again; and when you have found it, give good heed to it." Disobedience To The Gospel |
"A Christless gospel is no gospel and a Christless discourse is the cause of merriment to devils." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol I, Preface |
"I do not come into this pulpit hoping that peradventure somebody will of his own free will return to Christ; that may be so or not, but my hope lies in another quarter; I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine; I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will." Other Sheep And One Flock |
"The Spirit of God does, I believe, DIRECTLY, EVEN APART FROM THE WORD, SPEAK in the hearts of the saints." C. H. Spurgeon -- The Leading Of The Spirit, The Secret Token Of The Sons Of God |
"I am persuaded there are MANY occasions in a Christian’s life when, if he waits upon God, GOD WILL AS DISTINCTLY MOVE AND GUIDE HIM AS EVER HE DID THE PROPHETS OF OLD, AND THERE SHALL BE DIRECT COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE HOLY GHOST AND THE BELIEVER'S SOUL. I am sure, unless I have been fearfully deceived, that I have often felt the motions of God’s Spirit in that particular form." C. H. Spurgeon -- The Family Life |
"There is no being taught effectually except you are taught of the Spirit of God. All other teaching is superficial, and therefore temporary and vain; BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKS TO THE SOUL, and writes the lines of truth on the fleshy tablets of the heart, so that they can never be erased. If you would know the things freely given us of God, THE HOLY SPIRIT MUST LEAD YOU INTO THE INNER SECRET OF THE SACRED TREASURE-HOUSE." C. H. Spurgeon -- Grace For Grace |
"Moreover the Lord has a way of teaching us by his own Spirit. THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKS IN SECRET WHISPERS TO THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO HEAR HIM." C. H. Spurgeon -- At School |
"GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKS HOME TO THE INMOST SOUL WHEN HE SPEAKS TO SAVE: THERE IS NO PUTTING OFF HIS VOICE AS THOUGH DIRECTED TO ANOTHER... I ask you, my dear hearers now present, whether you have ever had God dealing with you in this powerful, this inward, this spiritual manner; for, if not, I am sure you have never come to Christ. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED NO CALL BUT SUCH AS I CAN GIVE YOU, SUCH AS MY BRETHREN WHO AID ME CAN GIVE YOU, SUCH AS THE MOST EARNEST EVANGELIST CAN GIVE YOU, YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED IN VAIN, AND ARE YET IN YOUR SINS." C. H. Spurgeon, A Family Sermon |
"Our spirit within us, begotten by the Holy Ghost at our regeneration, discerns the Great Spirit, communes with him, prefers to him its requests, and receives from him answers of peace. It is a spiritual business from beginning to end; and its aim and object end not with man, but reach to God himself." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVII, The Throne Of Grace |
"Wrought in us by the Spirit, presented for us by the Christ of God, prayer becomes power before the Most High, but not else." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVII, The Throne Of Grace |
"If anywhere you dare repeat holy words without heart, let it not be in Jehovah’s palace... let us beware of playing at praying. It is insolence towards God. If I am called upon to pray in public, I must not dare to use words that are intended to please the ears of my fellow-worshippers, but I must realize that I am speaking to God himself, and that I have business to transact with the great Lord. And, in my private prayer, if, when I rise from my bed in the morning, I bow my knee and repeat certain words, or when I retire to rest at night go through the same regular form, I rather sin than do anything that is good, unless my very soul doth speak unto the Most High." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVII, The Throne Of Grace |
"There is enough sin in the best prayer that was ever prayed to secure its being cast away from God... The Lord High Chamberlain of the palace above, our Lord Jesus Christ, takes care to alter and amend every prayer before he presents it, and he makes the prayer perfect with his perfection, and prevalent with his own merits." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVII, The Throne Of Grace |
"The covenant is ratified with blood, the blood of his own dear Son. It is not possible that we can plead in vain with God when we plead the blood-sealed covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the power of the blood of Jesus with God can never fail. It speaks when we are silent, and it prevails when we are defeated. Better things than that of Abel doth it ask for, and its cry is heard. Let us come boldly, for we bear the promise in our hearts." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XVII, The Throne Of Grace |
"From the descent of the Holy Ghost at the beginning we may learn something concerning his operations at the present time. Remember at the outset that whatever the Holy Spirit was at the first that he is now, for as God he remaineth for ever the same: whatsoever he then did he is able to do still, for his power is by no means diminished... Although we may not expect, and need not desire, the miracles which came with the gift of the Holy Spirit, so far as they were physical, yet we may both desire and expect that which was intended and symbolized by them, and we may reckon to see the like spiritual wonders performed among us at this day." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"If at the commencement of the gospel we behold the Holy Spirit working great signs and wonders may we not expect a continuance — nay, if anything an increased display of his power as the ages roll on?... I reckon that, with the sole exception of physical miracles, whatever was wrought by the Holy Ghost at the first we may look to be wrought continually while the dispensation lasts." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"The Holy Ghost is here, and we ought to expect his divine working among us: and if he does not so work we should search ourselves to see what it is that hindereth, and whether there may not be somewhat in ourselves which vexes him, so that he restrains his sacred energy, and doth not work among us as he did aforetime." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXVII, The Pentecostal Wind And Fire |
"When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then." Treasury Of David, Psalm LXXXI |
"One of the greatest enemies of Deity has always been the wisdom of man. The wisdom of man will not see God. Professing themselves to be wise, wise men have become fools." Sovereignty And Salvation |
"God teaches his people every day, by sickness, by affliction, by depression of spirits, by the forsakings of God, by the loss of the Spirit for a season, by the lackings of the joys of his countenance, that he is God, and that beside him there is none else." Sovereignty And Salvation |
"Ah! beloved, I do not think that he will be very successful as a minister who is not taken into the depths and blackness of his own soul." Sovereignty And Salvation |
"It is not a consideration of what you are, but a consideration of what God is, and what Christ is, that can save you. It is looking from yourself to Jesus." Sovereignty And Salvation |
"In the things of God the old is ever new, and if any man brings forward that which seems to be new doctrine and new truth, it is soon perceived that the new dogma is only worn-out heresy dexterously repaired, and the discovery in theology is the digging up of a carcass of error which had better have been left to rot in oblivion." Sermon For A New Year's Day |
"I feel persuaded that false doctrine, inasmuch as it touches God’s sovereignty, is always an object of divine jealousy. Let me indicate especially the doctrines of free-will. I know there are some good men who hold and preach them, but I am persuaded that the Lord must be grieved with their doctrine though he forgives them their sin of ignorance. Free-will doctrine — what does it? It magnifies man into God; it declares God’s purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God’s will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent upon human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice it holds God to be a debtor to sinners, so that if he gives grace to one he is bound to do so to all. It teaches that the blood of Christ was shed equally for all men and since some are lost, this doctrine ascribes the difference to man’s own will, thus making the atonement itself a powerless thing until the will of man gives it efficacy. Those sentiments dilute the scriptural description of man’s depravity, and by imputing strength to fallen humanity, rob the Spirit of the glory of his effectual grace: this theory says in effect that it is of him that willeth, and of him that runneth, and not of God that showeth mercy. Any doctrine, my brethren, which stands in opposition to this truth — "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," provokes God’s jealousy. I often tremble in this pulpit lest I should utter anything which should oppose the sovereignty of my God; and though you know I am not ashamed to preach the responsibility of man to God — if God be a sovereign, man must be bound to obey him — on the other hand, I am equally bold to preach that God has a right to do what he wills with his own, that he giveth no account of his matters and none may stay his hand, or say unto him, "What doest thou?" I believe that the free-will heresy assails the sovereignty of God, and mars the glory of his dominion. In all faithfulness, mingled with sorrow, I persuade you who have been deluded by it, to see well to your ways and receive the truth which sets God on high, and lays the creature in the dust." A Jealous God |
"If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ’s intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Savior died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!" A Defence Of Calvinism |
"Always recollect, dear friends, that the best spiritual food in the world is useless to those who are spiritually dead; and one very essential part of the gospel is that truth which our Savior so plainly taught, "Ye must be born again." All attempts at feeding the soul are of no use until the new birth has been experienced; even that precious, priceless bread of life cannot be assimilated unless the soul has been quickened by the Spirit of God." Feeding On The Bread Of Life |
"Coming to Christ is the very first effect of regeneration." Human Inability |
"The offending of human nature is sometimes the first step towards bringing it to bow itself before God." Human Inability |
"Through the fall, and through our own sin, the nature of man has become so debased, and depraved, and corrupt, that it is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit... Now, the reason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot come, so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned; but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit." Human Inability |
"With common consent, all believers affirm the truth, that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them." Human Inability |
"I shall not blush to preach before you the doctrine of God’s Divine Sovereignty; I shall not hesitate to proclaim, in the most unreserved and unguarded manner, the doctrine of election. I shall not be afraid to propound the great truth of the final perseverance of the saints; I shall not withhold that undoubted teaching of Scripture, the effectual calling of God’s elect; I shall endeavour, as God shall help me, to keep back nothing from you who have become my flock." Autobiography -- Later Service At The Music Hall |
"We ought to declare that grand doctrine of the Father’s love towards His people from before all worlds. His sovereign choice of them, His covenant purposes concerning them, and His immutable promises to them, must all be uttered with trumpet tongue. Coupled with this, the true evangelist must never tail to set forth the beauties of the person of Christ, the glory of His offices, the completeness of His work, and, above all, the efficacy of His blood." Autobiography -- Later Service At The Music Hall |
"That is no gospel which has not Christ in it; and the modern idea of preaching THE TRUTH instead of Christ, is a wicked device of Satan. Nor is this all, tot as there are three Persons in the Godhead, we must be careful that They all have due honour in our ministry. The Holy Spirit’s work in regeneration, in sanctification, and in preservation, must be always magnified from our pulpit. Without His power, our ministry is a dead letter, and we cannot expect His arm to be made bare unless we honour Him day by day." Autobiography -- Later Service At The Music Hall |
"I question whether we have preached all the counsel of God, Unless predestination, with all its solemnity and sureness, be continually declared, — unless election be boldly and nakedly taught as being one of the truths revealed of God. It is the minister’s duty, beginning from the fountainhead, to trace all the other streams; dwelling on effectual calling, maintaining justification by faith, insisting upon the certain perseverance of the believer, and delighting to proclaim that gracious covenant in which all these things are contained, and which is sure to all the chosen, blood-bought seed. There is a tendency in this age to throw doctrinal truth into the shade. Too many preachers are offended with that stern truth which the Covenanters held, and to which the Puritans testified in the midst of a licentious age. We are told that the times have changed, that we are to modify these old (so-called) Calvinistic doctrines, and bring them down to the tone of the times; that, in fact, they need dilution, that men have become so intelligent that we must pare off the angles of our religion, and make the square into a circle by rounding off the most prominent edges. Any man who does this, so far as my judgment goes, does not declare all the counsel of God. The faithful minister must be plain, simple, pointed, with regard to these doctrines. There must be no dispute about whether he believes them or not. He must so preach them that his hearers will know whether he preaches a scheme of free-will, or a covenant of grace, — whether he teaches salvation by works, or salvation by the power and grace of God." Autobiography -- Later Service At The Music Hall |
"If we are not saved by grace, we can never be saved at all. It; from first to last, the work of salvation be not in God’s hands, none of us can ever See His face with acceptance." Autobiography -- Later Service At The Music Hall |
"I would propose that the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist. You have there (pointing to the baptistery) substantial evidence that I am not ashamed of that ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ; but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must reply — “It is Jesus Christ.” My venerable predecessor, Dr. Gill, has left a body of divinity, admirable and excellent in its way, but the body of divinity to which I would pin and bind myself for ever. God helping me, is not his system of divinity or any other human treatise, but Christ Jesus, who is the sum and substance of the gospel; who is in himself all theology the incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life." The First Sermon In The Tabernacle |
"Preach CHRIST, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our one great, all-comprehending theme." Lectures, Sermons - Their Matter |
"Preaching God’s word is not what some seem to think, mere child’s play, a mere business or trade to be taken up by any one. A man ought to feel first that he has a solemn call to it; next, he ought to know that he really possesses the Spirit of God, and that when he speaks there is an influence upon him that enables him to speak as God would have him, otherwise out of the pulpit he should go directly; he has no right to be there, even if the living is his own property." Ministers And Success |
"It is a crime against the truth of God if we dare to take the name of his people when we are not his people." The Holy Ghost - The Need Of The Age |
"A true Christian is always intently reading and searching the Scripture that he may be able to certify himself as to its main and cardinal truths. I do not think much of that man who does not wish to understand doctrines; I cannot conceive him to be in a right position when he thinks it is no matter whether he believes a lie or truth, whether he is heretic or orthodox, whether he received the Word of God as it is written, or as it is diluted and misconstrued by man. God’s Word will ever be to a Christian a source of great anxiety; a sacred instinct within will lead him to pry into it; he will seek to understand it." The Holy Ghost - The Great Teacher |
"No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it a licentious doctrine did not know anything at all about it." The Holy Ghost - The Great Teacher |
"Almost every man whom God has blessed to the building up of the church in prosperity, and around whom the people have rallied, has been a man who has held firmly free grace from first to last, through the finished salvation of Christ." The Holy Ghost - The Great Teacher |
"When we have no commentator or minister, we have still the Holy Spirit; and let me tell you a little secret: whenever you cannot understand a text, open your Bible, bend your knee, and pray over that text; and if it does not split into atoms and open itself, try again. If prayer does not explain it, it is one of the things God did not intend you to know, and you may be content to be ignorant of it. Prayer is the key that openeth the cabinets of mystery. Prayer and faith are sacred picklocks that can open secrets, and obtain great treasures. There is no college for holy education like that of the blessed Spirit, for he is an ever-present tutor, to whom we have only to bend the knee, and he is at our side, the great expositor of truth." The Holy Ghost - The Great Teacher |
"Do you remember the love of the Spirit, when, after having quickened you, he took you aside, and showed you Jesus on the tree?" Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"When the Spirit has helped our infirmities how have we prayed! Why, there have been times when you and I have so grasped the knocker of the gate of mercy, and have let it fall with such tremendous force, that it seemed as if the very gate itself did shake and totter; there have been seasons when we have laid hold upon the angel, have overcome heaven by prayer, have declared we would not let Jehovah himself go except he should bless us. We have, and we say it without blasphemy, moved the arm that moves the world. We have brought down upon us the eyes that look upon the universe. All this we have done, not by our own strength, but by the might and by the power of the Spirit, and seeing he has so sweetly enabled us, though we have so often forgotten to thank him; seeing that he has so graciously assisted us though we have often taken all the glory to ourselves instead of airing it to him, must we not admire his love, and must it not be a fearful sin indeed to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed?" Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"Faith that is unsealed may be a poison, it may be presumption; but faith that is sealed by the Spirit is true, real, genuine faith." Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"It is a mercy for you to know that the Spirit of God never leaves his people finally; he leaves them for chastisement, but not for damnation. He sometimes leaves them that they may get good by knowing their own weakness, but be will not leave them finally to perish." Grieving The Holy Spirit |
"The habit of prayer is good, but the spirit of prayer is better. Regular retirement is to be maintained, but continued communion with God is to be our aim. As a rule, we ministers ought never to be many minutes without actually lifting up our hearts in prayer. Some of us could honestly say that we are seldom a quarter of an hour without speaking to God, and that not as a duty but as an instinct, a habit of the new nature." The Sword And The Trowel, June 1876 |
"I will for the time being take it for granted that we are all of us conscious of the existence of the Holy Spirit. We have said we believe in him; but in very deed we have advanced beyond faith in this matter, and have come into the region of consciousness... Even so we have felt the Spirit of God operating upon our hearts, we have known and perceived the power which he wields over human spirits, and we know him by frequent, conscious, personal contact." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"We know that there is a Holy Ghost, for we feel him operating upon our spirits. If it were not so, we should certainly have no right to be in the ministry of Christ’s church... Therefore, because of all these personal experiences, we know that there is a Holy Ghost, as surely as we know that we ourselves exist." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"We ought to be driven forth with abhorrence from the society of honest men for daring to speak in the name of the Lord if the Spirit of God rests not upon us. We believe ourselves to be spokesmen for Jesus Christ, appointed to continue his witness upon earth; but upon him and his testimony the Spirit of God always rested, and if it does not rest upon us, we are evidently not sent forth into the world as he was. At Pentecost the commencement of the great work of converting the world was with flaming tongues and a rushing mighty wind, symbols of the presence of the Spirit; if, therefore, we think to succeed without the Spirit, we are not after the Pentecostal order. If we have not the Spirit which ‘Jesus promised, we cannot perform the commission which Jesus gave." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"If you study the original, consult the commentaries, and meditate deeply, yet if you neglect to cry mightily unto the Spirit of God your study will not profit you; but, even if you are debarred the use of helps (which I trust you will not be), if you wait upon the Holy Ghost in simple dependence upon his teaching, you will lay hold of very much of the divine meaning." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"We need the Spirit of God to put bit and bridle upon us to keep us from saying that which would take the minds of our hearers away from Christ and eternal realities, and set them thinking upon the groveling things of earth." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"The divine Spirit will sometimes work upon us so as to bear us completely out of ourselves." Lectures - The Holy Spirit In Connection With Our Ministry |
"It is the tendency of churches in all ages to fetter the free Spirit. Now they are afraid that we shall have too many preachers, and they would restrain their number by a sort of trades-unionism. In certain churches none must speak in God’s name unless they have gone through a certain humanly prescribed preparation, and have been ordained after a regulation manner: the Spirit of God may speak by the ordained, but he must not speak by others. In my inmost soul I treasure the liberty of prophesying. Not the right of every man to speak in the name of the Spirit, but the right of the Spirit to speak by whomsoever he pleases. He will rest on some rather than on others, and God forbid that we should straiten his sovereignty! Lord, send by whomsoever thou wilt send; choose whom thou wilt to the sacred office of ministers of God. Amongst the poor and illiterate the Spirit of God has had voices as clear and bold as among the educated and refined, and he will have them still; for he is not straitened, and it is the way of him to use instruments which pour contempt upon all the vain-glory of men. He anoints his own to bear witness for his truth by life and lip; these the professing church may criticize, and even reject, saying, “The Lord has not spoken by these;” but the word of the Lord will stand, notwithstanding the judgment of men. God’s true ministers shall be owned of him: wisdom is justified of her children. The Lord’s Spirit will not be straitened or shut up by all the rules, and modes, and methods which even good men may devise. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and the power of the Spirit waiteth not for man, neither tarrieth for the sons of men." The Holy Ghost The Need Of The Age |
"It is true that the Church is not so full of life and energy and power and spirituality and holiness as she was in her first days, and therefore some insinuate that the gospel is an antique and an effete thing: in other words, that the Spirit of God is not so mighty as in past ages. To which the answer is, Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? are these his doings? If we are lukewarm, is that the fault of the Spirit of fire? If we are feeble in our testimony, is that the fault of the Spirit of power? If we are weak in prayer, is that the fault of the Spirit who helpeth our infirmities? Are these his doings? Instead of blaming the Holy Ghost, would it not be better for us to smite upon our breasts and chasten our hearts?" The Holy Ghost The Need Of The Age |
"It is not possible for us to promote the glory of God or to bless the souls of men, unless the Holy Ghost shall be in us and with us." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"Let us beware of trusting to our well-adjusted machineries of committees and schemes; let us be jealous of all reliance upon our own mental faculties or religious vigor; let us be careful that we do not look too much to our leading preachers and evangelists, for if we put any of these in the place of the Divine Spirit, we shall err most fatally." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"I am persuaded that so far from speaking too frequent upon this matter, we do not often enough extol the Blessed Spirit, and certain ministries almost ignore his existence. You might attend some chapels and not even know that there was a Holy Ghost at all." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"Dear friends, I think that whenever we see unusual gatherings of men, whenever the Spirit of hearing is poured out upon the people, we ought to pray for and expect an unusual visitation of the Spirit; and when I look upon these crowds assembled in this house every Sabbath year after year, I can but entreat you to cry mightily to him with whom is the residue of the Spirit that he would give us a Pentecost, for though neither Parthians, nor Medes, nor Elamites are here, yet there scarcely ever passes a Sabbath without there being representatives of almost all nations under heaven who hear the wonderful works of God, not in their own tongue it is true, but yet in a language which they understand. Oh! pray that the Spirit of God may fall upon the unexampled hosts assembled here." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"When God’s Church adds expectation to supplication, then a blessing tarries no longer. We ask, but we do not expect to receive. We pray, but probably nothing would so alarm us as the answer to our prayers. If after having pleaded with God to send his Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit did come, there are many who would not believe it, there are others who would think it a mere excitement, and there are multitudes who would shut their eyes to it altogether... Let us as a Church humble ourselves under the hand of God, and then, girding up the loins of our mind, to wait upon him with patience and earnestness until the Spirit be poured out from on high!" Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, and so, though the Spirit may have been secretly preparing men’s hearts, yet the real work of revival is done suddenly to the surprise of all observers." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"God's Spirit does not creep and crawl as too often our unspiritual agencies do, but when he comes, it is a rush, and half the world is lit with divine light before we dream that the match has struck." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"O Spirit of God, if thou wouldst but now come as a rough north wind, the crescent of Mohammed would be prostrate in the dust, and the gods of the heathen would fall upon their faces like Dagon before the ark. Thou hast but to proceed in thy sevenfold operations, and the harlot of Rome would lose her enchanting power. Thou canst dash in pieces the hoary systems which have resisted all human attack. Mightier than the tooth of time, thy finger, O sacred Spirit, could destroy what man reckons to be his everlasting workmanship. Glory be to God, wherever the Spirit comes he proves himself to be divine by the omnipotence which he displays." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"Ah! and when the Spirit of God comes, he never confines himself to the Church. The influence may not be saving to those without, but it is felt by them. A revival in a village penetrates even the pot-house. The Spirit of God at work in the Church is soon felt in the farm-yard, known in the workroom, and perceived in the factory. It is not possible for the Spirit to be confined when once he cometh." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"The real work was done when all present were filled with the Holy Spirit. What is this? What is this strange mystery? The skeptic sneers, and says, “There is no such thing;” the formal religionist says, “I have never felt it;” and the most of Christians think it something to be devoutly believed in, but by no means to be experienced. Is there a Holy Ghost? My hearer, thou darest not ask that question, unless thou art prepared to involve a doubt of thine own conversion, for “Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God;” and if, therefore, the Holy Ghost do not dwell in you, and has not made you a new creature by his miraculous operations, you are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Only the true Christian knows what it is to receive the Spirit, but there are only a few Christians who know what it is to be filled with it -- to be filled with it to the brim." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"May the Spirit of God be poured out to teach our ministers to preach plainly, to set our young men talking about Jesus Christ, for this is absolutely necessary. When the Spirit of God goes away from a Church it is a fine thing for oratory, because then it is much more assiduously cultivated. When the Spirit of God is gone, then all the ministers become exceedingly learned, for not having the Spirit they need to supply the emptiness his absence has made, and then the old-fashioned Bible is not quite good enough; they must touch it up a bit and improve upon it, and the old doctrines which used to rejoice their grandmothers at the fire-side are too stale for them; they must have an improved and a new theology, and young gentlemen now-a-days show their profound erudition by denying everything is the ground, and prop, and pillar of our hope, and starting some new will-o’-the-wisp which they set their people staring at. Ah! well, we want the Spirit of God to sweep all that away." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"When you get the Spirit of God to come upon you like fire and like a rushing mighty wind it will not be to make you doctors of divinity, and scholars, and great elocutionists; it will only be just for this, to make you preach Christ, and preach him more simply than ever you did before." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol IX, Pentecost |
"He that knows the work of the Holy Ghost must have learned to expect the unexpected." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, The Spirit And The Wind |
"Preachers scarcely like to tell their congregations nowadays that God gives his grace according to his own good pleasure. I learned, when I was a boy, that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy him for ever; but I hear now, according to the new theology, that the chief end of God is to glorify man and enjoy him for ever. Yet this is the turning of things upside down. The glory of God is still the chief end of the world’s existence; and whether men will have it so or not, the Lord has settled it. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion;” so that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, The Spirit And The Wind |
"My dear hearers, do you know anything about this? Has the Spirit of God so wrought with thee, that thou hast recognized the sound thereof? It is a manifest work: hast thou felt it?" Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, The Spirit And The Wind |
"A repentance that has no faith in it is no repentance; a faith that has no repentance with it is no faith." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol XXXV, The Spirit And The Wind |