Carnal reason is an enemy to faith: it is ever crossing and contradicting it. It will never be well with thee, Christian, so long as thou art swayed by carnal reason, and you rely more upon thy five senses, than upon the four Evangelists. As the body lives by breathing, so the soul lives by believing.

Little sins carry with them but little temptations to sin, and then a man shews most viciousness and unkindness, when he sins on a little temptation. It is devilish to sin without a temptation; it is little less than devilish to sin on a little occasion. The less the temptation is to sin, the greater is that sin.

Saints spring and thrive most internally, when they are most externally afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue.

Ah, believer, it is only Heaven that is above all winds, storms, and tempests; God did not cast man out of Paradise that he might find another paradise in this world.

God hears no more than the heart speaks; and if the heart be dumb, God will certainly be deaf.

Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.

The first step toward heaven, is to see ourselves near hell.