It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes, as, O, the place! O, the time! O, if this had been, this had not followed! O, the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the master motion and the first wheel.

Christ's enemies are but breaking their own heads in pieces, upon the Rock laid in Zion; and the stone is not removed out of its place. Faith hath cause to take courage from our very afflictions; the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints. I know that he but heweth and polisheth stones, all this time, for the new Jerusalem.

It is comfort to the believer that all things are possible.

My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and shall make glory out of your suffering.

Through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God ... It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin.

There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his children and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hungering for Christ; go never from him, but seek him who is yet pleased with the importunity of hungry souls until he fills you; if he delays, yet do not go away, even if you faint at his feet.

Why should I tremble at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop.