Persuade yourselves, that the faith of the gospel is beyond the power of nature; that there is a necessity of a power from on high to bring you to believe. This will raze the old foundation, and cause you to look up for it.

Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world.

The gospel casts out a rope to hale sinners to land; but the sinner has no hands to lay hold on it; his very faith must be wrought in him by the Spirit.

If a man be new-born, he will desire the sincere milk of the word.

The believer is sensible of his infirmities, for it is supposed that he is wrestling under them. He sees, he feels, that he is not man enough for his work; that his own hands are not sufficient for him, nor his own back for his burden; this is what drives him out of himself to the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And thus he lies open to the help of the Spirit, while proud nature in unbelievers is left helpless.

It is our duty to look to God's commands, and not to His decrees; to our own duty, and not to His purposes. The decrees of God are a vast ocean, into which many possibly have curiously pried to their own horror and despair; but few or none have ever pried into them to their own profit and satisfaction.

There is no true believing or trusting to the report of the gospel, but what is the effect of the working of a divine power on the soul for that end.