>”Job’s friends chose the right time to visit him, but took not the right course of improving their visit; had they spent the time in praying for him which they did in hot disputes with him, they would have profited him, and pleased God more.”
“Oh, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise, in the dark night of affliction, afraid to draw the latch, whereas he should then come boldly for shelter as a child into his father’s house.”
“God’s wounds cure, sin’s kisses kill.”
“Furnish thyself with arguments from the promises to enforce thy pravers, and make them prevalent with God. The promises are the ground of faith, and faith, when strengthened, will make thee fervent, and such fervency ever speeds and returns with victory out of the field of prayer…The mightier any is in the Word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.”
“Cease to pray and thou will begin to sin. Prayer is not only a means to prevail for mercy but also to prevent sin.”
“Satan cannot deny but that great wonders have been wrought by prayer. As the spirit of prayer goes up, so his kingdom goes down. Satan’s strategems against prayer are three. First, if he can, he will keep thee from prayer. If that be not feasible, secondly, he will strive to interrupt thee in prayer. And, thirdly, if that plot takes not, he will labour to hinder the success of thy prayer.”
“Not every one that now applauds truth, will follow it when once it comes to show them the way to prison. Not every one that preacheth for it, or disputes for it, will suffer for it.”
“He that plants sin and unholiness, and then thinks to gather any other than bitter fruit for all his labour, pretends to a knowledge beyond God himself”
“Those who are as unholy as others, naked to God’s eye and Satan’s malice, but to save their credit in the world, wear something like a breastplate–a counterfeit holiness, which does them this service for the present, that they are thought to be what they are not. ‘Verily they have their reward,’ and a poor one it is. For the Lord’s sake consider what you do, and tremble at it. You do the devil, God’s great enemy, double service, and God double disservice, just as he comes into the field and brings deceitful arms with him, he draws his prince’s expectation towards him as one that would do some exploit for him, but means nothing so, yea, he hinders some other that would be faithful to his prince in that place where he, a traitor, now stands. Such a one may do his prince more mis chief than many who cowardly stay at home, or rebelliously run over to the enemy’s side, and tell him plainly what they mean to do.
O friends! be serious. If you will trade for holiness, let it be for ‘true holiness,’ as it is phrased, ‘Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,’ Eph. 4:24
-William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour