The more a church flourishes, the more, I believe, do hypocrites get in, just as you see many a noxious creeping thing come and get in a garden after a shower of rain. The very things that make glad the flowers bring out these noxious things. And so hypocrites get in and steal much of the church's sap away.

The backbone of the preaching of Christ is a conviction of the truth of Christ.

Faith is the silver thread upon which the pearls of the graces are to be hung. Break that, and you have broken the string - the pearls lie scattered on the ground.

We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes.

You cannot preach conviction of sin unless you have suffered it. You cannot preach repentance unless you have practiced it. You cannot preach faith unless you have exercised it. True preaching is artesian; it wells up from the great depths of the soul. If Christ has not made a well within us, there will be no outflow from us.

I thought I could have leaped from earth to heaven at one spring when I first saw my sins drowned in the Redeemer's blood.

Many a text [of Scripture] is written in a secret ink which must be held to the fire of adversity to make it visible.