WILLIAM BRADSHAW (1571-1618): God needs no other light to discern our sins by but the light of His own face. It pierceth through the darkest places; the brightness thereof enlightens all things, discovers all things. So that the sins that are committed in deepest darkness are all one to Him as if they were done in the face of the sun. For they are done in His face, that shines more, and from which proceeds more light than from the face of the sun. So that this ought to make us the more fearful to offend.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): O, what can be hidden from the all seeing eye of God? Darkness is no darkness to Him; wherever He comes there is a profusion of light―for God is light!

WILLIAM BRADSHAW: Our sins are not only then in His sight when they are a committing and whilst the deed is doing; but ever after, when the act is past and gone and forgotten, yet then is it before the face of God, even as if it were in committing: and how should this make us afraid to sin!―God sets our sins before Him; this shows He is so affected with them, He takes them so to heart, that He doth in a special manner continue the remembrance of them.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Consult the Word, and thou wilt find that God usually hath put them to shame in this world, who have promised themselves most secrecy in their sinning. So Ghazi played his part cunningly enough, which made him so bold to come before his master, and impudently lie to his head, not dreaming the least that he was aware of his sin; yet this man is found out, and for the garments he got of Naaman by a lie, he had another given by the Lord, which he was to wear as a livery for his sin, for he was clothed with leprosy: a garment more lasting than the two changes of suits he had from the Syrian; for this lasted him all his life; neither was it then worn out, but to be put on by his children after him, II Kings 5:27.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Hypocrisy is a hard game to play at…Secret sinner! if thou wantest the foretaste of damnation upon earth, continue in thy secret sins; for no man is more miserable than he who sinneth secretly, and yet trieth to preserve a character…O the misery of secret sins! One may well pray, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults,” Psalm 19:12.

WILLIAM GURNALL: As He sees when thou shuttest thy closet to pray, and will reward thy sincerity: so when thou doest it to sin in secret, He will reward thy hypocrisy. The Word tells thee of an informer which thou hast in thy own bosom―conscience, which goes along with thee, and is witness to all thy fine-laid plots, and what it sees it writes down, for it is a court of record…and the pen with which conscience writes down our sins hath a sharp point, it cuts deep into the very heart and soul of the sinner.

C. H. SPURGEON: God has made men to be so wretched in their consciences that they have been obligated to stand forth and confess the truth.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Be sure your sin will find you out. That is, God will certainly reckon with you for it, though you may make a light matter of it.

THOMAS GOUGE (1605-1681): There is no sin so secretly and closely committed, but that shall be discovered to the view of all. There is scarce a wicked person in the world, though never so formal, but has at some time or other committed some such sin in secret, which he or she would not have others to know for all the world. But know for certain that at the day of judgment, all the world shall hear of it. For then all thy secret sins and close villainies shall be discovered, and laid open before the angels, men, and devils―yes, not only thy words and actions, but also thy secret thoughts and imaginations, how vain and wanton, how filthy and abominable they have been shall appear to the view of all. Never therefore adventure upon the committing of a sin the hope of secrecy, because ye seem safe from the eyes of others. For suppose your sin lie undiscovered to the last and great day, yet then shall it come out with a witness, and be made manifest to the view of all.

WILLIAM GURNALL: Yea, be he a saint, yet if he goes about to save himself from the shame of a sin, by any secret plot of wickedness, he takes the direct way to bring that upon him which he contrives to keep off. Uriah’s blood was shed only as a sinful expedient to save David’s credit, Ah, poor man! all comes out to his greater shame. David shall know that God will be as tender of His own honour, as he is of his credit; “for thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun,” II Samuel 12:12.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): If we care so little for the honour of God’s name as to be unconcerned for secret faults, we may expect He will care as little for the honour of ours, and will give us up so some open vice that shall cover us with infamy.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): All men’s secret sins are printed in heaven, and God will at last read them aloud in the ears of all the world.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Secret things, both good and evil, will be brought to light, and brought to account, in the judgment of the great day, Romans 2:16; there is no good work, no bad work, hid, but shall then be made manifest…Sin will, without doubt, find out the sinner sooner or later. It concerns us therefore to find our sins out, that we may repent of them and forsake them, lest our sins find us out to our ruin and confusion.

C. H. SPURGEON: Secret sins, like private conspirators, must be hunted out, or they may do deadly mischief.

THOMAS GOUGE: Now I know no better way to prevent the discovery of your sins at the great day, than here in this time and day of grace to call yourselves to an account, to search and examine your own hearts and lives, and then to judge and condemn yourselves for your manifold sins and transgressions, for as the apostle speaks, “If we judge ourselves, we shall not be condemned of the Lord,” I Corinthians 11:31. Oh therefore, let us here often keep a day of judgment in our own souls and consciences, by a serious examining of ourselves for the sin, and then let us in all humility prostrate ourselves at the throne of grace, pleading the mercy of God and the merits of Christ for the pardon and forgiveness of them all; giving no rest to our souls, till we have some comfortable evidence and assurance, which will cause us to lift up our heads with joy at the great day of account.

WILLIAM BRADSHAW: We should never rest till we have by repentance moved Him to blot them out. Yea, to this end we should ourselves call them to remembrance. For the more we remember them, the more God forgets them; the more we forget them, the more God remembers them; the more we look upon them ourselves, the more He turneth His eyes from them.

WILLIAM GURNALL: God is privy to thy most secret sin.

OBADIAH SEDGWICK: Secret sins will become public sins if they are not cleansed.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Without the belief of the doctrine of election, and the immutability of the free love of God, I cannot see how it is possible that any should have a comfortable assurance of eternal salvation…And this assurance can only arise from a belief of God’s electing everlasting love―that they may no longer build upon their own faithfulness, but on the unchangableness of God, whose gifts and callings are without repentance. For those whom God has once justified, He will also glorify.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): Is it not a comfortless doctrine, that founds their believing and perseverance on their own free will?

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: It has a natural tendency to keep the soul in darkness for ever; because the creature thereby is taught, that his being kept in a state of salvation, is owing to his own free will. And what a sandy foundation is that for a poor creature to build his hopes of perseverance upon? Every relapse into sin, every surprise by temptation, must throw him “into doubts and fears, into horrible darkness, even darkness that might be felt.”

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): The doctrine of predestination is not a doctrine of God―Predestination destroys the comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity.

JAMES DURHAM: Would you think it more comfortable and sure, that the effectualness of believing and perseverance should hang on the grace of God, or on your own free will, especially considering the depravity of your will?

GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): I [once] called the doctrine of election a devilish doctrine. I did not believe I had brought myself to the Lord, for that was too manifestly false; but yet I held, that I might have resisted finally. And further, I knew nothing about the choice of God’s people, and did not believe that the child of God, when once made so, was safe for ever…But I was brought to examine these precious truths by the Word of God―and being made willing to receive what the Scriptures said, I went to the Word, reading the New Testament from the beginning, with a particular reference to these truths. To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in [those] doctrines.

R. L. DABNEY (1820-1898): This doctrine―the Bible system of grace which men call Calvinism―while it lays man’s pride low, gives him an anchor of hope, sure and steadfast, drawing him to heaven; for his hope is founded not in the weakness, folly, and fickleness of his human will, but in the eternal love, wisdom, and power of Almighty God.

JOHN WESLEY: Directly does this doctrine tend to destroy several particular branches of holiness.

GEORGE MÜLLER: As to the effect which my belief in these doctrines had on me, I am constrained to state, for God’s glory, that though I am still exceedingly weak, and by no means so dead to the lusts of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as I might and as I ought to be, yet, by the grace of God, I have walked more closely with Him since that period.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always be full.

JOHN WESLEY: Then your comfort depends on a poor foundation. My comfort stands not on any opinion, either that a believer can or cannot fall away. My comfort is, that through grace I now believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that His Spirit doth bear witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. I take comfort in this and this only, that I see Jesus at the right hand of God; that I personally for myself, and not for another, have an hope full of immortality; that I feel the love of God shed abroad in my heart, being crucified to the world, and the world crucified to me. My rejoicing is this, the testimony of my conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, I have my conversation in the world. Go and find, if you can, a more solid joy, a more blissful comfort, on this side heaven. But this comfort is not shaken―be that opinion true or false―whether the saints in general can or cannot fall. If you take up with any comfort short of this, you lean on the staff of a broken reed, which not only will not bear your weight, but will enter into your hand and pierce you.

WILLIAM TIPTAFT: Remember, Satan can transform himself into an angel of light.

C. H. SPURGEON: The devil will also pervert the doctrine of final perseverance. “Look,” says Satan, “the children of God always hold on their way: they never leave off being holy; they persevere; their faith is like the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day; and so would yours be if you were one of the Lord’s. But you will never be able to persevere”―Oh, poor soul, tell Satan that thy perseverance is not thine, but that God is the author of it; that however weak thou art, thou knowest thy weakness, but that if God begins a good work He will never leave it unfinished.

ANTHONY BURGESS (died 1664): Even all the people of God, were they not kept by God’s grace and power, they would every moment be undone both in soul and body. It is not our grace, our prayer, our watchfulness that keeps us, but it is in the power of God, His right arm, that supports us.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: that God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, “Free-will” is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert “Free-will,” must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them.

C. H. SPURGEON: If there be one contingency—one “if,” or “though,” or “but,” about my soul’s salvation, then am I a lost man. But this is my confidence, the Lord that began will perfect that which concerneth me, Psalm 138:8. He has done it all, must do it all, He will do it all. My confidence must not be in what I can do, or in what I have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do…When you know that your Lord is able to keep that which you have committed to Him until that day, then you are firm as a rock. God make you so.

HENRY MOORHOUSE (1840-1880): Ruth was a woman who had a great deal of faith, and a great deal of common sense. You know it is one thing to have grace, and another thing to have common sense. But she had both. She had got more than she wanted, and she “beat out that she had gleaned; and it was about an ephah of barley.” And she carried away—the straw? No, she did not; but that is what we do sometimes. We attend a meeting, and when we go away we leave the corn behind, and carry away the straw. “Dear me! Never heard anything like that before.” “Do you agree with all that he said?” “He said this or he said that, or he said the other: did you know what it all meant?” That is carrying away the straw instead of the wheat. The wheat cannot grow without straw, and many sermons have more straw than wheat in them. Beat it out. Leave the straw and carry home the wheat. I never heard anybody in my life who spoke about the Master, who did not give me some wheat to carry away. Let us glean until even, then beat it out and carry home the wheat or the barley.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): They say that common sense is worth all the other senses put together; and methinks if men could but use common sense aright, it might be a fine thing for them in matters of religion…
      The first lessons I ever had in theology were from an old cook in the school at Newmarket where I was an usher. [Mary King] was a good old soul, and…a godly experienced woman, from whom I learned far more than I did from the minister of the chapel we attended. I asked her once, “Why do you go to such a place?”
      “Well, there is no other place of worship to which I can go.”
      “But it must be better to stay at home than to hear such stuff.”
      “Perhaps so,” she answered, “but I like to go out to worship even if I get nothing by going. You see a hen sometimes scratching all over a heap of rubbish to try to find some corn; she does not get any, but it shows that she is looking for it, and using the means to get it, and then, too, the exercise warms her.”
      So the old lady said that scratching over the poor sermons she heard was a blessing to her because it exercised her spiritual faculties and warmed her spirit. On another occasion I told her that I had not found a crumb in the whole sermon, and asked how she had fared. “Oh!” she answered, “I got on better tonight, for to all the preacher said, I just put in a not, and that turned his talk into real gospel.”

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): If people would exercise the same common sense in religion which they discover in the ordinary affairs of life, it would save them from a thousand mistakes. Behold the husbandman. He knows that God gives the increase―but he also knows how He gives it―and therefore manures, and ploughs, and sows, and weeds. His reliance upon God tells him that favourable seasons and influences are necessary to raise and ripen the corn―but he is never guilty of such folly as to go forth at harvest, and expect to reap where he has not sown. Nevertheless, such is the folly of many with regard to religious things. Such is the folly of a man who complains he does not profit by the Word―but never tries to impress his mind with the importance of the duty in which he is going to engage, never hears with attention and application; never retires to review what he has heard, and to make it his own.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Common sense alone might tell us the path of duty, if we would only make use of it.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, Ephesians 5:17. That word “unwise” does not here signify bare ignorance or lack of knowledge, otherwise the two halves of the verse would merely express the same thought in its negative and positive forms. No, the word “unwise” there means “lacking in common sense,” or as the R.V. renders it “be not ye foolish.”

SAMUEL DAVIES (1724-1761): The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments, Psalm 111:10. The text shows us the first step to true wisdom, and the test of common sense…In short, to pursue everlasting happiness as the end, in the way of holiness as the mean, this is “wisdom,” this is common sense, and there can be none without this.

C. H. SPURGEON: Now I come to the second point, a common sense question―You know what Edward Young* says—“All men think all men mortal but themselves.” We believe that all men will die, but somehow or other, we fancy we shall live. Now the question I shall put reminds me of that sentence. It is this, “Who are you that you think you shall escape the punishment of sin?” When the first [point] was put, you were compelled to confess that you had some guilt; who are you that God should let you off, and not punish you? Who are you that you should stand clear of the sins that you have committed? All men think all men guilty but themselves. They think all men deserve to be punished; but every man has such a good excuse of his own iniquity, that he thinks surely at the last day, he may hope to creep away without the curse. Now I put this common sense question: What is there about you that your sins should not be punished as well as the sins of any other man? Who has given you an exemption? What is there about you that you should walk about this earth and fancy your sins are nothing at all, and that other persons sins are so tremendous?

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to Scripture and to common sense.

C. H. SPURGEON: If the sinner will keep his sin, he must die in it; if he is willing to be rescued from his sin, the Lord Jesus is able to do it, and will do it if he commits his case to His care. What, then, is your darling sin? Is it any gross wrong-doing? Then very shame should make you cease from it. Is it love of the world, or fear of men, or longing for evil gains? Surely, none of these things should reconcile you to living in enmity with God, and beneath His frown…May God of His rich mercy, give you even a little common sense, for, surely, common sense would drive you to Him!
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*Editor’s Note: Edward Young (1681-1765) was a English poet and also a royal chaplain. Perhaps one of his most well-known sayings is this: “Procrastination is the thief of time.”

ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE (1813-1843): I observe that some Christians are very ready to censure ministers, and to complain of their preaching—of their coldness—of their unfaithfulness. God forbid that I should ever defend unfaithful preaching, or coldness, or deadness, in the ambassador of Christ! May my right hand sooner forget its cunning! But I do say, where lies the blame of unfaithfulness?—where, but in the want of faithful praying? Why, the very hands of Moses would have fallen down, had they not been held up by his faithful people.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Conscientious ministers are public blessings, and deserve the prayers of the people.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): And therefore let all men pray for those who are thus ordained to be teachers and ministers of the Word, for it is a singular gift of God when we have such shepherds of our souls as are able to guide us well. Wherefore let it be known both to small and great, that to maintain the Church in her estate and in her soundness, God must give strength to those whose duty it is to teach, and men must pray for them, for in so doing every man procures his own good and his welfare.

MATTHEW HENRY: In praying for faithful ministers, people in effect pray for themselves―and the more earnestly the people pray for their ministers the more benefit they may expect to reap from their ministry. They should pray that God would teach those who are to teach them, that He would make them vigilant, and wise, and zealous, and successful—that He would assist them in all their labours, support them under all their burdens, and strengthen them under all their temptations.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Ministers and people need each others’ prayers, and it is a mutual duty they owe to one another. Ministers are obliged by special office, people by common duty, with respect to the success of the Gospel in general, and in their own edification by their labours. The apostle [Paul], as he did not think it below him to call these Thessalonians brethren, so neither to beg their prayers. Those that stand highest in the Church may stand in need of the meanest and lowest; the head cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee.

MATTHEW HENRY: Ministers stand in need of their people’s prayers―ministers need and request it. Paul, though an apostle, did so with much earnestness, Romans 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:11; Ephesians 6:18,19; 1 Thessalonians 5:25.

JOHN CALVIN: Though the Lord powerfully aided him, and though he surpassed all others in earnestness of prayer, he nevertheless does not despise the prayers of believers…He does not say this by way of pretense, but because, being conscious to himself of his own necessity, he was earnestly desirous to be aided by their prayers, and was fully persuaded that they would be of advantage to them. Who then, in the present day, would dare to despise the intercessions of brethren, which Paul openly declares himself to stand in need of? And, unquestionably, it is not in vain that the Lord has appointed this exercise of love between us—that we pray for each other…And if we are negligent in this, it is a sign that we set no value either on our spiritual life, or on the common welfare of the whole church.

MATTHEW POOLE: Those that preach not the Gospel may yet promote it by their prayers.

MATTHEW HENRY: The least may in this way be helpful to the greatest.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): How many people pray before they go to a service that the Spirit of God might come upon the preacher and use him and his message? The hearers, as well as the preacher must pray for that, otherwise they are looking to him and to his message. No, all together must look to God and realize their utter dependence upon the power that He alone can give.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Oh, that many of them would learn to lean less on ministers, and to pray more for the Holy Spirit! Oh, that all would learn to expect less from schools, and tracts, and ecclesiastical machinery, and, while using all means diligently, would seek more earnestly for the outpouring of the Spirit.

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758): I have not, in times past, in my prayers, enough insisted on the glorifying of God in the world; on the advancement of the kingdom of Christ, the prosperity of the Church, and the good of man.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): I have been endeavouring to establish amongst us what are called “Aaron and Hur Societies”―little collections of four or five or more persons, who meet before service on Sabbath morning to spend an hour in prayer for a blessing on the minister and the ordinances. They began on New Year’s Day, and we seemed to have an immediate answer, for the meeting was unusually solemn, and we have reason to hope that the word was not preached in vain.

ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE: It is prayer that gives preaching all its power.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I do not believe there is any true revival that is not brought about by a good deal of prayer.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Oh, my dear friends, pray for all the ministers of Christ, that God would make them more abundantly useful. Ask for us more liberty in speech, more unction on our heads and in our hearts; ask for us a greater intensity of agony on account of the souls of men; ask for us greater earnestness in prayer. Pray for us that we may be masters of the sacred art of wrestling with God. Pray for us that a revival of religion may come into this land.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Until we find a stirring of the work of God among ministers, we cannot expect to find it among the people. Pray the Lord of the harvest, pray for students, that when they come out they may say, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And when it is on upon them, the whole world will be set on fire of love―but it will never be, until the Spirit of God is poured out upon the sons of the prophets.

ROBERT TRAILL (1642-1716): Surely you must think they were bold and saucy professors, that sought a proof of Christ’s speaking in and by Paul, as 2 Corinthians 13:3. To them he saith in effect, “Instead of your trying, whether Christ speaks by your ministers, inquire if Christ be in yourselves or not. If Christ be not in you, they have spoken to little good purpose to you: and if Christ be in you, you will quickly know who they be that speak in Christ’s name unto you, and whether Christ speaks by them to you.”

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Ministers are received for―and are given to you―by Christ. As men, and as sinful men, ministers are as nothing, and wish not to make anything of themselves; but, as the gifts of Christ, it becomes you to make much of them. If you love Christ, you will make much of your minister, on account of his being His gift—a gift designed to supply Christ’s absence in a sort. He is gone―ascended―but He gives you His servants…If you fear God, you will be afraid of treating your pastor amiss, seeing he is the gift of Christ. God took it ill of Israel for despising Moses, Numbers 12:8: He is “My servant.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Make much of the ministers that are where our lot is cast, if they have ordained mercy to be faithful, though they are not of the most eminent.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): In all congregations, however the preacher be clothed with his Master’s Spirit and his Master’s might, there will be a mixed gathering; there will come together your Pharisees and doctors of the law, your sharp critics ready to pick holes, your cold-blooded cavilers searching for faults; at the same time, chosen of God and drawn by His grace, there will be present some devout believers.

BASIL (329-379): Many go to hear a preacher, not as learners, but as spies, anxious to find out the weak parts of his discourse; and who, even in the Scriptures, seek matter for criticism, not edification.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): They attend not so much to be instructed, as to pass their sentence. To them, the pulpit is the bar at which the minister stands to take his trial before them; a bar at which few escape censure, from judges at once so severe and inconsistent. For, as these censors are not all of a mind, and perhaps agree in nothing so much as in the opinion they have of their own wisdom.

THOMAS ADAMS (1583-1656): Many are like barbers, that trim all men but themselves.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): There was an old preacher whom I knew very well in Wales. He was a very able old man and a good theologian; but, I am sorry to say, he had a tendency to cynicism. But he was a very acute critic. On one occasion he was present at a synod in the final session of which two men were preaching. Both these men were professors of theology. The first man preached, and when he had finished this old preacher, this old critic turned to his neighbour and said, “Light without heat.” Then the second professor preached―he was an older man and somewhat emotional. When he had finished the old cynic turned to his neighbour and said, “Heat without light.”

C. H. SPURGEON: And he criticizes everything, but never feeds upon the truth at all. Like a madman at table he puts his fork into the morsel and holds it up, looks at it, finds fault with it, and throws it on the floor.

JOHN FLETCHER (1729-1785): When you are under the Word, beware of sitting as judges and not criminals. Many judge the manner, matter, voice, and person of the preacher. You, perhaps, judge all the congregation, when you should judge yourselves…When you have used a means of grace, and do not find yourselves sensibly quickened, let it be a matter of deep humiliation to you.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): We do not come to the preaching to say ‘I was there,’ but to reflect on the Word that we have heard.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): One duty and necessary practice of God’s children, is to hide the word in their hearts. See it confirmed by a scripture or two―Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart, Job 22:22; Let the word of God dwell in you richly, Colossians 2:16. Oh, therefore, labour to get something into thy heart by every sermon; some fresh notion or consideration is given out to set you a work in the spiritual life.

EDMUND CALAMY (1600-1666): Let the sermon thou hast heard be converted into prayer.

THOMAS MANTON: A conscientious waiting upon God will find something every time. It is sad to consider how many have heard much, and laid up little or nothing at all, it may be they have laid it up in their note-books, but not laid up the word in their hearts.

WILLIAM GOUGE (1575-1653): The preaching of the word is a great help to bring us to do the will of God. And that is in a double respect. First, because the will of God is thereby the more clearly, distinctly, and fully opened to us. Secondly, because it is a means sanctified of God to greed credence to the truth of that which is revealed, and affiance therein; yes, and to bow our will, heart, and affections to yield thereto, and to be settled thereon. In this respect, says the wisdom of God, which is especially set forth in the preaching of His Word, Blessed is man that heareth me; watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors, Proverbs 8:34.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Even when the Christian, through weakness of memory, cannot remember the very words he hears to repeat them; yea, then he keeps the power and savour of them in his spirit, as when sugar is dissolved in wine you cannot see it, but you may taste it―so you may taste the truths the Christian heard, in his spirit, and see them in his life.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Some of you want a little pushing in this direction, for I know a great many Christians who live as if the main point in religion was to enjoy yourself. “I enjoyed that sermon. I enjoyed that prayer-meeting.” Yes, that is quite right. But have you done anything? Have you served your Master? Have you offered anything to Jesus? Have you brought forth fruit to His glory? Oh, it is a good thing to be watered; it is a blessed thing to stand in the warm sunlight and grow; but after the watering and the sunshine must come the fruit-bearing, or we shall be barren fig trees after all.

MATTHEW HENRY: If men did but consider that it is God that speaketh unto them by the mouth of His ministers, they would hear and heed much better.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): If ministers only saw the preciousness of Christ, they would not be able to refrain from clapping their hands with joy, and exclaiming, I am a minister of Christ! I am a minister of Christ!

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Of all works or employments, the ministry is the most noble employment.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): I can wish no higher preferment than to be an ambassador of the King of kings…Yet I find the ministry a bitter sweet; the pleasure is tempered by many things that make a near and painful impression upon the spirit; but, on the whole, it is given unto me—and I trust to you likewise—to rejoice in it.

THOMAS ADAM (1701-1784): How glorious a distinction for a man to be employed under Christ, in the recovery of souls!

EDWARD PAYSON: Though, in committing the gospel to their trust, God has conferred on ministers the greatest honour and favour which can be given to mortals, yet, like all other favours, it brings with it a great increase of responsibility.

JOHN NEWTON: We are called to an honourable service; but it is arduous.

MATTHEW POOLE: The titles of gospel ministers are not mere titles of honour.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We are ministers. The word has a respectable sound. To be a minister, is the aspiration of many a youth. Perhaps, if the word were otherwise rendered, their ambition might cool. Ministers are servants: they are not guests, but waiters; not landlords, but labourers. The word has been rendered “under-rowers,” men who tug at the oars on the lowest bench…We are not captains, nor owners of the galley, but only the oarsmen of Christ. Let us remember that we are the servants in our Lord’s house.

JOHN BOYS (1619-1625): For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, Ephesians 4:12. The word work forbids loitering, and the word ministry lording.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): As a minister, one is but a servant to hew wood and draw water for the house of my God. Yea, Paul, though a son, yet counted himself not a son but a servant, purely as he was a minister―a servant of God; a servant of Jesus Christ; a servant of all, and your servant for Jesus’ sake, Titus 1:1; Romans 1:1; I Corinthians 9:19; 2 Corinthians 4:5.

ISAAC BACKUS (1724-1806): An office than which there is nothing in this life, and especially in this age, more difficult, more laborious, more dangerous, or, on the other hand, more blessed before God, if a man conduct himself therein as a true soldier under the banner of Christ.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The end and aim of the ministry are to be gathered from the apostle’s solemn and comprehensive language, They watch for your souls as they that must give account, Hebrews 13:17. There, in that short, but sublime and awful sentence, the end of the pastoral office is set before us.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): They must give an account how they have discharged their duty, and what has become of the souls committed to their trust, whether any have been lost through their neglect, and whether any of them have been brought in and built up under their ministry.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We are labouring for eternity, and we count not our work by each day’s advance, as men measure theirs; it is God’s work, and must be measured by His standard. Be ye well assured, when time, and things created, and all that oppose themselves to the Lord’s truth shall be gone, every earnest sermon preached, and every importunate prayer offered, and every form of Christian service honestly rendered, shall remain in the mighty structure which God from all eternity has resolved to raise in His own honour.

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Keep habitually in view the awful importance of the office before you.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The work of the ministry must be acknowledged by all who believe the truths of revelation, and hope for happiness beyond the grave, to be the most important in which a human being can possibly engage.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is an honourable thing to bear the Word of God: but our condemnation will be the greater if we think not on it, to employ ourselves therein with fear and humbleness…If he do not his duty faithfully, the honour he was placed in will cost him too much, and it had been better for him that he had never known what a pulpit meant, nor the office which was committed to him, then to have occupied such a place and not served God as he ought.

C. H. SPURGEON: Martin Luther declares that he never feared the face of man―yet he said he never went up the stairs of the pulpit at Wittenberg but he felt his knees knock together with fear lest he should not be faithful to God and His truth.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): When I was but a young divine, methought Paul did unwisely in glorying so oft of his calling in all his epistles; but I did not understand his purpose, for I knew not that the ministry of God’s Word was so weighty a matter.

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691): When I think what I am and Who sent me, and how much the salvation and damnation of men is concerned in it, I am ready to tremble, lest God should judge me a slighter of His truth, and the souls of men, and lest in my best sermons I should be guilty of their blood.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE (1702-1751): Oh, my brethren, let us consider how fast we are posting through this dying life, in which we are to manage concerns of infinite moment; how fast we are passing on to the immediate presence of our Lord to give account to Him!

THOMAS ADAM: Remember this, O my soul, it is for eternity.

J. W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859): It is recorded of the excellent John Brown of Haddington—and I regret that I have forgotten his very words—that to a former pupil who was complaining of the smallness of his congregation, he said: “Young man, when you appear at Christ’s bar, it will be the least of your anxieties that you have so few souls to give account of.”

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): What a privilege is it to be a believer! They are comparatively few, and we by nature were no nearer than others: it was grace, free grace, that made the difference. What an honour to be a minister of the everlasting Gospel! These upon comparison are perhaps fewer still.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I count it the highest honour that God can confer on any man to call him to be a herald of the gospel…Any true definition of preaching must say that that man is there to deliver the message of God, a message from God to those people. If you prefer the language of Paul, he is an ambassador for Christ. That is what he is. He has been sent, he is a commissioned person, and he is standing there as the mouthpiece of God and of Christ to address those people. In other words he is not there merely to talk to them, he is not there to entertain them…An ambassador is not a man who voices his own thoughts or his own opinions or views, or his own desires. The very essence of the position of the ambassador is that he is a man who has been “sent” to speak for somebody else. He is the speaker for his Government or his President or his King or Emperor, or whatever form of government his country may have.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Ambassadors have their respect according to the rank of their master that sends them; the greater the prince, the more honourable is his messenger. Now, the ministers of the gospel come from the great God, who is “King of kings, and Lord of lords”—by whom they reign, and of whom they hold all their principalities. This is their Master in whose name they come.

WILLIAM S. PLUMER (1802-1880): They plead the cause of Him who is the God of the whole earth, yes, the God of heaven.

JOHN WYCLIFFE (1330-1384): The highest service that men may attain to on earth is to preach the Word of God.

JOHN NEWTON: On the day when the Lord admitted me into the ministry, and I received ordination, I thought He had then ennobled me, and raised me to greater honour and preferment than any earthly king could have bestowed; and, blessed be His name, I think so still, and had rather be [a minister] than in any situation the world can afford, if detached from the privilege of preaching the gospel.

GENERAL THOMAS (STONEWALL) JACKSON (1824-1863): Oh, it is a glorious privilege to be a minister of the gospel of the Prince of Peace! There is no equal position in this world.

JOHN NEWTON: A minister of Jesus Christ is as high a style as a mortal man can attain. His department is much more important than that of a first Lord of the Treasury, or Admiralty, a Chancellor, or a mere Archbishop…Allow me to say, that it excites both my wonder and concern, that a minister should think it worth his while to appear in the line of a political writer, or expect to amend our constitution or situation, by proposals of political reform.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Am I a minister? Let me be a minister wholly, and not spend my energies upon secondary concerns.

WILLIAM S. PLUMER: To forsake it for any other office, however exalted, is a sad fall from honour. To one who solicited a civil appointment at his hand, President Andrew Jackson said: “As a minister of the Gospel you already hold an office much higher than any in my gift or in my possession. If you shall be able to give a good account of that, it will be as much as could be expected of any man.” The old President was right.

C. H. SPURGEON: To be a minister of Christ is in my estimation an infinitely higher honour than the world can bestow. My pulpit is to me more desirable than a throne, and my congregation is an empire more than large enough; an empire before which the empires of the earth dwindle into nothing in everlasting importance.

WILLIAM GREENHILL (1591-1677): Ministers and watchmen in Zion are to act in the name and authority of God. “Thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me, ” Ezekiel 33:7.

C. H. SPURGEON: The message we are to deliver is not ours, but His.

A. P. GIBBS (1890-1967): This, in turn, gives a joyous confidence and a holy boldness to the preacher, as he realizes the authority that lies behind the message and the messenger.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The preacher should never be apologetic, he should never give the impression that he is speaking by their leave as it were; he should not be tentatively putting forward certain suggestions and ideas. That is not to be his attitude at all. He is a man who is there to “declare” certain things; he is a man under commission and under authority. He is an ambassador, and he should be aware of his authority. He should always know that he comes to the congregation as a sent messenger.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): If men did but consider that it is God that speaketh unto them by the mouth of His ministers, they would hear and heed much better.

WILLIAM GURNALL: We cannot despise the messenger and honour his master that sends him, Luke 10:16. Few are so bold as to say with that proud king, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? Exodus 5:2. But too many dare say, Who is the minister, that I should obey his message?—repent at his summons, tremble at the words he delivers? forgetting, alas! they have God’s authority for what they say; and so, by a slanting blow, they hit God Himself in condemning his ambassador.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): I was little more than sixteen when I began [preaching] and I remember soon after I had begun my early career, I went to supply for a Sabbath at Melksham. At this time was residing there an old gentleman from London, a very wise man―at least, in his own conceit. I called upon him on the Monday morning. He received me rather uncourteously. He did not, indeed, censure my preaching, but rudely said, he had no notion of beardless boys being employed as preachers. “Pray, sir,” said I, “does not Paul say to Timothy, Let no man despise thy youth? And sir, you remind me of what I have read of a French monarch, who had received a young ambassador, and, complaining, said, ‘Your master should not have sent me a beardless stripling.’ ‘Sir,’ said the youthful ambassador, ‘had my master supposed you wanted a beard, he would have sent you a goat.’”

JOHN NEWTON: The faithful ministers of the Gospel are all the servants and ambassadors of Christ―they speak in His name.

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): There is in the awful and mysterious depths of the triune God neither limit nor end.

JOSIAH PRATT (1768-1844): Say what you will of Arminian difficulties, no difficulty can be greater than reconciling the sovereignty of God with the responsibility of man.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Why should Paul exhort a believer to persevere, if it be impossible for him to fall away?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Do not imagine for an instant that I pretend to be able thoroughly to elucidate the great mysteries of predestination. There are some men who claim to know all about the matter. They twist it round their fingers as easily as if it were an everyday thing; but depend upon it, he who thinks he knows all about this mystery, knows but very little. It is but the shallowness of his mind that permits him to see the bottom of his knowledge; he who dives deep, finds that there is in the lowest depth to which he can attain a deeper depth still.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): First, then, when they inquire into predestination, let them remember that they are penetrating into the recesses of the Divine wisdom, where he who rushes forward securely and confidently, instead of satisfying his curiosity will enter into an inextricable labyrinth. For it is not right that man with impunity pry into things which the Lord has been pleased to conceal within Himself, and scan that sublime eternal wisdom which it is His pleasure that we should not apprehend but adore, that therein also His perfections may appear. Those secrets of His will, which He seen it meet to manifest, are revealed in His Word―revealed insofar as He knew to be conducive to our interest and welfare.

JOHN LELAND (1754-1841): To reconcile the eternal designs of God with the freedom of the human will, is a question that puzzles all men―but there is a great doubt whether the mind of man is large enough to reconcile the question: if it is, why is not the matter settled long ago? It appears to be one of the deep things of God, which we are to believe without comprehension. Should the Lord use ever so many words to elucidate the subject, still, the mind of man is so limited, that the matter should remain in the profound.

C. H. SPURGEON: This is not a subject for understanding, it is a matter for believing because it is revealed in the Word of God. It is one of the axioms of theology that, if man be lost, God must not be blamed for it; and it is also an axiom of theology that, if man is saved, God must have all the glory of it.

ALEXANDER CARSON (1776-1844): This is a depth we cannot fathom; but it is a truth necessary for the honour of the character of God; and one which the Scriptures leave no room for doubt.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Two grand truths have always seemed to me to pervade the whole Bible―that if we are saved, it is entirely of God’s grace; and if we are lost, it will be entirely from ourselves. I know full well a man may easily force me into a corner with things seemingly or really related to the truth of either these affirmations; but he will not shake my confidence in either, while I can read, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: but in me is thy help, Hosea 13:9. The connection is like a chain across the river; I can see the two ends, but not the middle; not because there is no real union, but because it is under water. Lower the water, or raise the links, and I shall see the centre as well as the extremes.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): There are extremes in everything. I pray God to shew you the golden mean.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): I deplore what is called “the golden mean” in matters of Biblical interpretation, and maintain that the truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes. Thus I am a high Calvinist sometimes and a low Arminian at other times; so that if extremes please you, I am your man. Only remember, it is not one extreme we are to go to, but both extremes. So, my beloved brother, if I find you at the zenith [height] at one side, I shall hope to find you at the nadir [bottom] at the other.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): We acknowledge the need for preserving the balance of Truth…To emphasize the sovereignty of God, without also maintaining the accountability of the creature tends to fatalism; to be so concerned in maintaining the responsibility of man, as to lose sight of the sovereignty of God, is to exalt the creature and dishonour the Creator.

BROWNLOW NORTH (1810-1875): Paul clearly teaches the doctrines of divine election and human responsibility. I cannot reconcile them. Neither could Paul. But there they are; and the election is God’s, the responsibility is ours.

C. H. SPURGEON: Cling to the two great collateral truths of Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility…That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory, but they are not. The fault is in our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and I find that in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.

JOHN BRADFORD (1510-1555): Let a man go to the Grammar school of faith and repentance, before he goes to the University of election and predestination.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): All objections to predestination proceed from the wisdom of the flesh.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): But I would be tender on this point, and leave persons to be taught it of God. I am of the martyr Bradford’s mind.

C. H. SPURGEON: Remember, no one will be responsible for your damnation but yourself, at the last great day. God will not be responsible for it. “As I live saith the Lord”—and that is a great oath—“I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. but had rather that he should turn unto me and live.” Do not fancy that election excuses sin—do not dream of it—do not rock yourself in sweet complacency in the thought of your irresponsibility. You are responsible. We must give you both things. We must have divine sovereignty, and we must have man’s responsibility. We must have election, but we must ply your hearts, we must send God’s truth at you; we must speak to you, and remind you of this, that while it is written, “In me is thy help,” yet it is also written, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.”

ALEXANDER CARSON (1776-1844): Accurate views of the Scripture doctrine of inspiration are of immense importance for the discovery of what the Scriptures contain.

ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): The word inspire signifies to breathe into, and literally corresponds to the original in 2 Timothy 3:16. All Scripture is inspired by God, or, breathed into the writers by God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): By “inspiration” we do not mean that these men were inspired in the way certain poets have been ‘inspired’ and given glimpses into truth―and who, having this poetic insight, saw a little further into life than other people, and, thus inspired, made wonderful statements about life and how to live it.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Not inspired in the sense which Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden may be inspired, but in an infinitely higher sense.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We must not confound it with intellectual power, such as great poets and authors possess. To talk of Shakespeare and Milton and Byron being inspired, like Moses and St. Paul, is to my mind almost profane.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): [Satan] rages against the Divine accuracy of the Bible, and cunningly subverts its inspiration by elevating every true poet and philosopher to the same ‘inspired’ position.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Undoubtedly there is what I may call a black inspiration—the influence of the evil spirits, who work in the hearts of the disobedient, and not only excite their wills, but assist their faculties, and qualify as well as incline them to be more assiduously wicked, and more extensively mischievous, than they could be of themselves. I consider Voltaire, for instance, and many writers of the same stamp, to be little more than secretaries and amanuenses of one who has unspeakably more wit and adroitness in promoting infidelity and immorality, than they of themselves can justly pretend to. They have, for a while, the credit―if I may justly so call it―of the fund from whence they draw; but the world little imagines who is the real and original author of that philosophy and poetry, of those fine turns and sprightly inventions, which are so generally admired. Perhaps many, now applauded for their genius, would have been comparatively dolts, had they not been engaged in a cause which Satan has so much interest in supporting.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): But holy men of old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter 1:21.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: They were actually controlled by the Holy Spirit. ‘Borne along’, as Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:21, or as Paul puts it, ‘God-breathed.’

J. C. RYLE: It proves nothing against inspiration, as some have asserted, that the writers of the Bible have each a different style. Isaiah does not write like Jeremiah, and Paul does not write like John. This is perfectly true—and yet the works of these men are not a whit less equally inspired. The waters of the sea have many different shades. In one place they look blue, and in another green. And yet the difference is owing to the depth or shallowness of the part we see, or to the nature of the bottom. The water in every case is the same salt sea…The handwriting and style of the writers differ enough to prove that each had a distinct individual being; but the Divine Guide who dictates and directs the whole is always one. All are alike inspired.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): But though all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it does not follow that it is [inspired] in the same sense and degree.

ROBERT HALDANE: The Scriptures contain no intimation of their being written under an inspiration of any kind but one―that the inspiration is in the matter, not in the words; that one part of Scripture is written with one kind or degree of inspiration, and another part with another kind or degree, is contrary to the phraseology, and totally without foundation in any part of the Scriptures themselves.

JOHN NEWTON: I do not approve of the scholastic distinctions about inspiration, which seem to have a tendency to explain away the authority and certainty of one half of the Bible at least.

C. H. SPURGEON: Do you see why men would lower the degree of inspiration in Holy Writ, and would fain reduce it to an infinitesimal quantity? It is because the truth of God is to be supplanted. If you ever go into a shop in the evening to buy certain goods which depend so much upon colour and texture as to be best judged of by daylight; if, after you have got into the shop, the tradesman proceeds to lower the [light]…and then commences to show you his goods, your suspicion is aroused, and you conclude he will try to palm off an inferior article. I more than suspect this to be the little game of the inspiration-depreciators. Whenever a man begins to lower your view of inspiration, it is because he has a trick to play, which is not easily performed in the light. He would hold a seance of evil spirits, and therefore he cries, “Let the lights be lowered.”

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): The divine authority of the Scriptures and their inspiration are two distinct, but inseparable, truths. The authority of the Scriptures proceeds from their inspiration, and their inspiration establishes their authority…If the authority of the Scriptures falls, their inspiration falls; if, on the contrary, it be the inspiration that is taken from us, the authority likewise vanishes away. The Scripture without inspiration is a cannon from which the charge has been removed.

LORD SHAFTESBURY (1801-1885): Men contend that one part of the Bible is inspired, and that another is not, or that there are differences in the degree of inspiration. The whole authority of the Bible is thus cut up from beginning to end.

ROBERT HALDANE: Christians ought to beware of giving up in the smallest degree the inspiration of the Bible.

C. H. SPURGEON: If you adopt theories which pare off a portion here, and deny authority to a passage there, you will at last have no inspiration left, worthy of the name.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE (1702-1751): A partial inspiration is, to all intents and purposes, no inspiration at all.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Upon the foundation of the Divine inspiration of the Bible stands or falls the entire edifice of Christian truth—if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Surrender the dogma of verbal inspiration and you are left like a rudderless ship on a stormy sea—at the mercy of every wind that blows. Deny that the Bible is, without any qualification, the very Word of God, and you are left without any ultimate standard of measurement and without any supreme authority.

C. H. SPURGEON: To us the plenary* verbal inspiration is fact, and not hypothesis.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): The two testaments are the two lips by which God hath spoken unto us.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): It is the Word of God, and not the word of man, and has as real authority to call for obedience, as if God spoke it immediately from heaven.
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*Editor’s Note: The word “plenary” means “unqualified, full, entire, or absolute.” The Bible is not inspired by God in one part, and uninspired in some other part; it is the fully complete, absolute Word of God. Everything that God has to say to man, He has said in His Word, and as such, the Bible requires an obedience to its authority.

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): For centuries the Church has stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was―a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability.

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691): Laziness breeds a love of amusement.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): It is the duty of church members to avoid what are called worldly amusements, such as theatrical representations, card playing, balls, and all kinds of gambling, frequenting taverns, fashionable concerts of music, private dancing parties, and fashionable games―for although some of these entertainments may not be demoralizing, yet they abate seriousness and spirituality, promote levity and frivolity of mind, are a great waste of time, and are a part of that conformity to the world in which Christians are forbidden to indulge. It is a sad proof of little or no true vital piety, when people feel it a hardship to be debarred by their profession from such engagements.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There are many in the present day who tell us that the theatre is a great school for morals. That must be a strange school where the teachers never learn their own lessons. In God’s school the teachers must be masters of the art of holiness.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): I am well satisfied, that if there is any practice in this land sinful, attendance on the playhouse is properly and eminently so. The theatres are fountains and means of vice.

TERTULLIAN (160-240): The theatre is especially the shrine of Venus. The theatre of Venus is also the house of Bacchus.* Christian, thou must hate these things!

C. H. SPURGEON: A member of [Rowland Hill’s] congregation was in the habit of going to the theatre. Mr. Hill went to him and said, “This will never do—a member of my church in the habit attending the theatre!” Mr. So-and-So replied that it surely must be a mistake, as he was not in the habit of going there, although it was true he did go now and then for a treat. “Oh!” said Hill, “then you are a worse hypocrite than ever, sir. Suppose any one spread the report that I ate carrion, and I answered, ‘Well, there is no wrong in that; I don’t eat carrion every day in the week, but I have a dish now and then for a treat!’ Why you would say, ‘What a nasty, foul, and filthy appetite Rowland Hill has, to have to go to carrion for a treat!’”

JOHN NEWTON: I can hardly think there is a Christian upon earth who would dare to be seen there, if the nature and effects of the theatre were properly set before them.

C. H. SPURGEON: When I first heard an oath, I stood aghast, and knew not where to hide myself; yet now, if I hear an imprecation or blasphemy against God, though a shudder still runs through my veins, there is not that solemn feeling, that intense anguish, which I felt when first I heard such evil utterances. By degrees we get familiar with sin.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): If a man prayed to be heavenly minded, would he go and wait in a theatre for the answer?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Will the Spirit perform these gracious operations if we are indifferent as to whether or not our conduct grieves Him? If a Christian has spent his evening at the card-table or the theatre, and before retiring to rest bows his knees, will the Holy Spirit, at that time, draw out the heart of such an one and grant him conscious access to the Father?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Books, especially novels, radio programs, television and also the cinema. These things are generally a source of temptation, and when you give time and attention to them you are making provision for the flesh, you are adding a little fuel to the flame, you are feeding the thing you know is wrong. And we must not do so.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Every means should be used that may stop the avenues of temptation, or prevent its coming in contact with the evil propensities of the heart—If there be [gunpowder] in our habitations, it becomes us to beware of fire. Where the heart begins to be seduced by temptation, it will soon become restless―it will moan after it, and be exceedingly fruitful in devices to get in the way of it; it will persuade conscience, for once, at least, to be silent; it will blind the mind to the evil, and paint the desirableness of the good; and, if all this will not do, it will promise to be only a looker-on, or that thus far it will go, and no further—But if thou hast any regard to God or His cause, or to the welfare of thine own soul, consent thou not! Temptation leads to sin, and sin to death. Whatever company, amusement, occupation, or connection has frequently caused thee to offend, that is the eye that requires to be plucked out.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: There is a fire within you; never bring any oil anywhere near it, because if you do there will be a flame, and there will be trouble.

JOHN NEWTON: The time is short; eternity at the door; was there no other evil in these vain amusements than the loss of precious time―but, alas! their name is legion―we have not leisure in our circumstances to regard them.

C. H. SPURGEON: A safe rule to apply to all occupations is—“Can I take the Lord Jesus Christ with me if I go there?” If not, it is no place for me as one of His followers.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Suppose some town in our country should be made, as nearly possible, to resemble heaven. Suppose all the inhabitants without exception, to be, not only pious, but eminently so. Suppose all worldly amusements, all political discussions, all commercial transactions, all secular conversation, to be banished from among them; while the presence of Christ should be enjoyed in a peculiar manner, and all the employment should be to love and praise and serve Him? Would you joyfully choose that town, in preference to all other places, for your earthly residence?―If you reply, No, then is it much more evident that you could not be happy in heaven. If you reply, Yes, we could be happy in such a situation—I ask, why then do you not, so far as possible, live such a life of religion here?

C. H. SPURGEON: Come, ye children of God, you must stand with your Lord outside the camp. Jesus calls you to-day, and says, “Follow Me.” Was Jesus found at the theatre? Did He frequent the sports of the race-course? Was Jesus seen, think you, in any of the amusements of the Herodian court? Not He.
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*Editor’s Note: In Roman mythology, Venus was, among other things, the goddess of sexual desire and seduction, and also celebrated as the goddess of prostitutes; Bacchus was the god of wine whose worship was known for drunken debauchery. One would be dull indeed not to see some obvious connections to Hollywood movies, many television shows, and the profession of acting itself; give actors a role, pay them enough, and they will say and do almost anything on film. Before the 1950’s, it was necessary to go to the theatre; but television and the internet have brought the theatre into the home.